


SHADOW WALKER

by paranoey



Category: Magium (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2020-10-05 05:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 38,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20483981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paranoey/pseuds/paranoey
Summary: A story about a non-mage swordsman who is participating in the magium tournament





	1. CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER ONE  
I opened my eyes in a dark forest. I stayed still for a while in order to get my heart rate to normal. Teleporting to this place brought back some nasty memories.  
There must have been hundreds of mages with me in this forest. It was better to avoid confrontation at this stage. I diverted my aura flow to my hearing sense and listened. I heard screams, clanks, explosions and chaotic chatter everywhere, even closer than I expected, hoped.  
I started walking uphill to get to a peak to have a better look at my surroundings. As I was approaching an opening, I felt that something was not right. It was dead quiet and I noticed that the tree branches were not swinging in accord with the wind. This was an illusion.  
I quickly slipped into the shadow realm by slicing my sword in a downward motion; opening a dimensional portal. The shadow realm was a distorted reflection of the real world; a realm only I had access thanks to my sword`s unique ability. Since there was no magic in this realm, the illusion had no effect on me and I could now see them clearly. Four mages were going through some bags, discussing about the trinkets and enchanted items they found. There were two gnomes lying on the ground. One of them was already dead. Other one was a female with orange hair and she was tied up.  
The mage with a staff tipped with a prism crystal said;  
\- “Hey, what do you think this is?”  
\- “How the hell I know. We can take all of them to an appraiser, when we are in a city. Just put everything in the bag.”  
Another one with daggers on his sides was more interested in the female gnome;  
\- “What are we going to do with this one? Maybe we should keep her as our pet,” Grinning like a Cheshire cat.  
Fourth one was standing up and on the lookout. Clearly, annoyed by how loud his companion was;  
\- “Stay silent you dumb. Do you want to alert every one of our presence? She will tell everything she knows about these trinkets and we will give her a quick death and move on.”  
\- “Okay, okay. I am just trying to have some fun.”

Well, I heard and saw enough. I hate people like them. They use their power for murder and evil. I cannot let them kill her. I seriously hoped I did not have to get my hands dirty so early in the tournament but here we go.  
As I ran out of breath, I positioned myself right behind the mage with prism staff. Probably he was the illusionist, better to kill him first. I swung my sword in a downward motion and stepped out of the shadow realm. In an instant, I plunged my sword through his neck in the heart. I quickly sliced other mages throat while they were still in shock. I made my way to the standing mage but he was too quick. He started screaming at me and pushed me away from him with some sort of sonic magic. As he attacked me with some other powerful sonic blasts, I slipped into the shadow realm again.  
\- “Be careful. He can materialize anywhere,” he warned his friend with the daggers.  
Though it was too late; I made a move to his throat but suddenly the other daggers unsheathed themselves and blocked my swords as if they had a mind of their own. They were going to attack me but I kicked the guy downhill to the cliff. It was the last time I saw him. I hope he does not give any trouble to anyone else.  
The other mage sent me three sonic daggers but I deflected them all with my sword and advanced towards him.  
\- “You, who the hell are you? What is a regular human doing in a mage tournament? Just because you have a fancy sword does not mean you can go up against the mages. I trained for years. I can destroy you and all of this area in the blink of an eye if I wanted. But instead I will capture you alive and torture you, weakling. Good luck deflecting my sleep spell.”  
And he casted a sleeping spell on me. He was right. As a non-mage, I would be vulnerable to such spells if it were not for my rigorous aura training to compensate for my lack of protection spells. I am in complete control of my aura flow and I am resistant against almost all mind affecting spells such as sleeping and suggestion.  
\- “I thought you were going to put me to sleep. Still waiting,” I said.  
When he saw his spell has no effect on me, he casted a couple more times but still nothing.  
\- “This is not over here. We will continue this and it will be your last day, I promise” he said and casted a teleportation spell to escape.  
I did not think he got too far but I did not want to chase him. I turned to the gnome. She was in shock with all that happened. I cut her loose. She looked at me and to the other dead gnome for a while and then she started crying.  
I did not know if I should try to comfort her or stay silent.


	2. CHAPTER 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> new party members

CHAPTER 2  
I buried the dead gnome. It did not feel right to leave him like that. I wanted to give her more time to grieve but we did not have too much time in the middle of this tournament. We packed her belongings and left the area.  
She looked calmer some time later;  
\- “Thank you, sir, for saving me. I do not have a lot but you can have the items in my backpack as a reward,” she said. Her voice cracked in every word.  
\- “I am not looking for a reward and you can call me Rai. What is your name and what were you two doing here?”  
\- “My name is Juniper Greenpatch.”  
It turned out that two gnomes were siblings. Her brother was an enchanter and she was a tinkerer. They joined to tournament in the hopes of finding some rare magical materials and more knowledge on teleportation devices. They were from southern continent and lived in a landlocked village. They were trying to build a teleportation device to bring water from a remote lake for irrigation but they were lacking necessary materials and knowledge to create such advance teleportation device. They did not even want to win the tournament and one of them was already dead on the first night.  
\- “I believe I should find a local and activate my teleportation spell so I can go back to my village. Without my brother I do not have a chance to gather all I need anyways,” she said.  
\- “If you do that, it means your brother died for nothing. You should continue your quest to honor your brother. You do not have to do this alone, we can journey together. It would be nice to have you as a team mate. What do you say?”  
\- “Do you mean it? Thank you sir, umm… Rai. Okay, I will continue the tournament. Sorry to ask but what is your goal? Do you want to win the Magium?”  
\- “No, I have a personal business in this island with a certain group. But I will still be doing the tournament objectives; I do not want to get eliminated for lack of participation,” I said but i heard noises behind the trees. “Hold on! There is something coming in our way. Get ready.”  
As I finished my sentence, she cloaked herself in her cape and I unsheath my sword. A huge flaming boulder was coming our way; destroying everything in its path. I had to dodge it just before it crushed me. I hoped juniper was okay. I could not see or sense her. It seemed her cape concealed her aura as well.  
The boulder transformed into a golem and started attacking me. This was exactly what I feared; an enemy that does not bleed. All I could do was to dodge and run when I had a chance. Since the summoner was not around, trying to find him would not make sense. While I was struggling to keep up with the golem, someone blasted the whole thing with a huge explosion. As it was destroyed to small rock pieces, I saw Juniper holding a metal ball with two crystals protruding from the bottom and upper half.   
\- “Is that a magitech bomb?” I asked her in awe. Never seen one of those.  
\- “Yes, it is and I have many more of these where they come from.”  
\- “Let's not wait until more golems show up. I sense mages running towards us. Let's go.”  
We ran until I could not sense any mages behind. I had no idea if they were after us or running away from someone. Well it did not matter since we lost them.  
\- “Juniper, we can slow down now.” hold on. Where did she go?  
\- “Sir, can you come here?” she shouted at me behind a rock.  
I found Juniper looking at a grey wolf. He was lying and obviously in pain.  
\- “Is that a summoned wolf, Sir? Umm… Rai.” Juniper asked.  
\- “No, he is not a summon. He is a mage. He is just suppressing his aura to avoid detection,” I explained.  
\- “What do you mean he is mage? Animals cannot be a mage.”  
\- “Well, in this island, animals are sentient, they can talk and some of them are mages just like humans.”  
\- “Wow, they can talk. What is your name sir Wolf? Are you in pain?”  
\- “I am actually wondering why he is lying there, doing nothing.”  
As he attempted to speak, he got electrocuted and growled in pain. He was obviously disturbed by our presence.  
\- “He got caught in a magical trap. The moment he tries to move a muscle or cast a spell, he gets electrocuted. So he cannot do anything until the trap`s electric is depleted.”  
\- “Can you help him?”  
\- “Well, he is a mage and a participant. He may attack us if I free him.”  
\- “Do you promise you won't attack us Sir Wolf? Blink twice if you do.”  
The wolf blinked twice with an angry expression. Probably he did not want the help of a human but he had no choice.  
\- “How will you dispel the trap, Rai,” asked Juniper.  
\- “I will go into the shadow realm. Though it is a reflection of the material world there cannot be magic. I cannot touch living beings but if I focus hard enough, I can interact with inanimate objects. There must be an object that acts as a focal point to sustain the trap. I will just remove it.”  
I took a deep breath and slipped into the shadow realm. The air in the shadow realm was unbreathable. I started digging with my hand under the trap and found a runic stone and threw it away. I see the wolf jumped away from the trap and Juniper.  
\- “Are you okay Sir Wolf?” she asked. Voices reached to this realm distorted but still audible.  
When I entered the real world, the wolf launched a frost missile to me but it past behind and hit a man. There was a young guy in baggy clothes and his eyes were closed. While he countered the frost missile with his own fire magic, he was looking at the wolf with a smirk. “Does he know him?”


	3. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER, CHAPTER 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a familiar face

CHAPTER 3  
\- “My my Kurzon. Is this how you greet an old friend? What are you doing so far away from your pack? How is Eleya by the way?” said the guys with baggy clothes.  
\- “I did not know you returned Eiden. I would not know how the fox is. She exiled me long time ago,” the wolf said.  
\- “Still so rigid with her rules, I see. Look at you guys. A gnome, a wolf and a mutant in one team. I declare you guys my second favorite team,” Eiden said.  
\- “We are not a team sir,” said Juniper. “We are just helping Kurzon. Is that what your name is?”  
The Wolf was going to reply but Eiden intercepted;  
\- “You should definitely form a team otherwise none of you will have any chance of surviving this tournament. Anyways, I have things to do. I just came to see you, Kurzon. I wish all three of you good luck and I am sure I will see you again.”  
He said and teleported out of here. He must have been very good at reading auras if he knew I was a mutant at first glance.  
\- “Who was he? Why did he even come here and leave like that?” I asked to the wolf.  
\- “He was once an ally to the animals and a leader to the humans but now your guess is as good as mine. Thank you for saving me from that trap mutant. A Wolf always pays back. As a token of my appreciation, I offer my services to your team until the final round of the tournament and then we can fight to decide who will get the magium, assuming we can make to the final stage.”  
\- “Well, thank you. You can call me Rai though. Why are you not with the other animals?”  
\- “As I said earlier, I have been exiled because I disagreed with our so called leader a couple times and she made a younger wolf to challenge me for the wolf pack. I am getting old so I lost. However if it was not for her, none of my family would challenge me out of their respect. She must have forced them. Why am I in this tournament? I would like to keep it to myself for the time being.”  
Juniper and I agreed on taking him to our team. Wolves are respectful and strong members of the animal kingdom and having their former leader as a team mate was an invaluable contribution. He knew a hiding spot in this area so we made our way there, keeping an eye for other magical traps. Luckily our night continued without an incident. So we could have a good night sleep, taking turns to keep watch.  
In the morning, Kurzon said he could conjure food. Juniper was amazed by this magic and even more amazed how delicious the conjured foods were.  
\- “Okay Kurzon. Let's discuss our strategy. As you can see I am not a mage but I can use my sword to slip into shadow realm and I am a mutant as your friend said. I am good against illusionists, mystics and enchanters.”  
\- Juniper asked shyly, “sorry Rai, I do not want to be rude but what is a mutant? Is it some sort of magic?”  
\- “No, it is not. I became a mutant through a magical procedure but now it is a part of me. It means I have animal features. The mutagen used in my procedure came from an Electric Eel. So you can say I am part electric eel part human. It increases my physical stats to animalistic levels.”  
\- “Ohh, wow. That is amazing. Umm, so it is my turn. I am a tinkerer. I can make magical tools and weapons as long as I have parts for it. I use my cape to cloak my presence and use various bombs to attack,” Juniper said, showing a bomb to Kurzon.  
\- “Impressive,” said Kurzon. “You two definitely have some unique items. I am a frost mage. I can create frost novas, missiles, blizzards and freezing beams. I can decrease objects` temperature to absolute zero in an instant. But I cannot create or manipulate ice. It is usually mixed with ice elemental magic but they are different. I will take on the elementalists then. Let's talk about what we will do next. I know a small village called Tristheim where we can wait until the first objective is given.”  
Since we do not have anything better to do, we decided to go to the village through a mountain pass. While at the peak, I noticed a dragon fighting a group and afterwards saw a giant some 15 miles away. Kurzon told about us the dragon Tyrath but he did not know giants were invited. We were just happy with the fact that we were going in the opposite direction. I would rather not deal with a giant and Tyrath`s attack would be the quickest way to end our journey if it is as strong as the Wolf said. We replenished our water at a nearby waterfall and picked up berries and mushrooms on the way. By the evening, we arrived to Tristheim. As we approached the entrance, a dwarf with no facial hair and a childish face cut our way.  
\- “Good evening mate. I take it you all are tournament participant just like me and my brother. Wondering if I can ask a favor. The guards did not allow both of us inside so my brother went in alone to gather some supplies. However he did not return. It has been three hours. The guards say everything is fine and I should wait. I cannot force my way because of the tournament`s rule. So can you look out for my brother? He has an enchanted chainmail armor like mine and an axe. Cannot miss him. His name is Brock,” he said.  
\- “Okay. I will look for him.” I could tell by his aura that he was not lying, so I decided to help him.  
We approached to the guards as a group but they told us the same thing. Only one person per group was allowed inside and the rest must stay outside. We were hoping to rent a room at the local inn but arguing with authorities was pointless so I agreed and went inside to purchase the goods we needed and to look for the dwarf. As I walked to the village center, I saw an older woman looking at me with terror in her eyes. Her behavior was not natural and obviously she was scared; but from whom or what. Something was not right here, this was an ambush. I was being watched by seven pair of eyes from the shadows, behind the covers and thru the dark rooms. All of them jumped and throw different styles of magical missiles at me. There were fire balls, coyotes made out of radiating magical energy, arrows coming right at me. Poor woman tripped and fell while trying to flee out of harm's way. None of them were mages so that`s why I did not sense them. All of them had a unique magical weapon that helped them to cast magic. Seven magic weapon holders against one. That was surely not fair, to them.


	4. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER, CHAPTER 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> journey starts

CHAPTER 4  
I jumped up and came to a horizontal position to dodge the arrows, used my sword to deflect the fireballs and sliced the air under me to slip into the shadow realm as gravity pulled me down right before the energized coyote exploded and I vanished from the earthen realm.  
\- “Where did he go? Did he teleport out?” said the one with a metal staff.  
\- “No, I think he is just invisible. Everyone watch your backs.”  
While they were arguing among themselves and trying to find me, I entered one of the houses. There was a dwarf on the floor. That must be Brock. He was unconscious and his head was bleeding. He did not have too much time left; I needed to end this quickly. I climbed up the roof and made my way to the fireball caster. Two of them were trying to find me; the other attacker had a hammer. Since I did not know what it did, it was better to kill him first. As I sliced open the air to get to the earthen realm, I plunged my sword in and cut his throat all in one motion. The other started sending me fire balls with a terrified look in his face, shouting. Most of them did not even hit me and I deflected two fireballs right back at him. He burnt to death the moment of impact although he managed to alert his friend of my location. The people attacking me just looked like common bandits, but how the hell they found enchanted weapons. Suddenly another bandit turned the corner. He was holding a huge two handed sword which was covered with a turquoise light. He sliced the air in a horizontal motion and sent a powerful light attack to me in a crescent shape. Although I managed to block the attack, I could not nullify the power behind it. It pushed me toward a house; I hit the door, destroying it with the impact and falling to the floor. I barely kept my consciousness.  
\- “Hey, Marzel, destroy the house, he is inside,” he yelled.  
I escaped to the shadow realm just in time before the house was completely crushed between two huge blocks of rock. They thought they killed me. The moment they lowered their guards, I punctured two handed sword wielding bandit`s heart.  
\- “You, bastard. You will pay for this.” Said the bandit with a trident and slammed his trident into the ground.  
Multiple rocks rose into the air and hurled toward me. I could hardly dodge all the rocks thrown at me. As I was just slipping into the shadow realm, another bandit came out of nowhere and grabbed me. Locking his hands in front of my chest; started squeezing my lungs. He was too strong for me to get out of his grip. I lost my grip on my sword and could feel my lungs were collapsing and my ribs were about the break. I electrified myself using my mutant powers. The bandit got stunned and lost his posture. I quickly jumped over his head and started pushing him to the trident wielding mage. I crashed into him with all my speed. Using the momentum, I took both of them down to the ground and discharged all the stored electric in my body. I electrocuted them until they fried.  
The fight was over. Remaining two bandits dropped their weapons and surrendered. They knew they had no chance of winning or fleeing.  
\- “Please. We did not kill anyone. All of them are alive. Please do not kill us,” begged the bandit.  
\- “Tell me everything,” I said with a menacing tone.  
He told me that they planned to ambush mages one by one to take their magical items, weapons and anything valuable. They put a device that blocked outgoing sound from the village. So the other team members did not hear the fighting. They were in league with some of the guards and subdued the lieutenant in charge along with the villagers. They were all tied in the barracks. I rescued the real guards and the villagers. The Lieutenant took the village`s control with my help from the remaining guards and we tend to the wounded dwarf.  
Lieutenant executed the betrayer sergeant right at the village center, but he arrested two other guards along with the bandits. Juniper still could not believe what happened while they were waiting outside.  
\- “Are you wounded, Rai? I have some ointment that can help you,” she said.  
\- “I am good but thanks. I heal quickly and Kurzon already casted a little healing magic to me and to the dwarf.”  
\- “Thank you all of you. If it were not for you, my brother would be dead. All is well now. That is the important thing. We should celebrate. We have tons of ale and dried mammoth meat,” said Etri, Brock`s little brother, with a childish grin on his face.  
Villagers gave us what we needed free of charge to show their appreciation. We all stayed at the inn and got out of Lieutenant`s hair while he locked up the prisoners and filed his report. Brock slept all night to recuperate. We indeed had a feast with dwarven ale, mammoth meat and Kurzon`s conjured delicacies.  
In the morning, the lieutenant found me;  
\- “Hi. I want to give this letter to you for your deed. You did a great service to us, it should be rewarded.”  
\- “I didn't do it for a reward, lieutenant. The villagers already gave us what they could. No need for more,” I said.  
\- “Nonsense. Take this letter to our headquarters in Galamir. Our General will reward you for your service. I am not taking no for an answer. I also gathered the magical items from the bandits. Two of them belongs to us, the other two was reported missing from other posts so I need to send them to their rightful owners. But I am willing to give you one of the remaining three. Choose the one you like.”  
He put three items on the table for me to choose from. Fireball gauntlet was too clunky for my style, so was the hammer. Other one was a spool of elven steel wire. It was soft, elastic and very sturdy. It would convey electric good too.  
\- “I will take the wire spool,” I said.  
\- “Well, I would take the hammer but it’s your choice. Anyway, I have another thing. A mission. You see I have four prisoners and I need to send them to Galamir. As you know I do not have enough manpower to escort them. Would you be willing to take them to Galamir? You will be rewarded for that too. And between us, I heard that the next objective will require participants to go to Galamir. so that's a bonus for you. What do you say?”  
\- “Thanks for the info Lieutenant but I need to check with my team first.”  
After speaking with the team, we accepted the Lieutenant`s offer. Brock and Etri also wanted to tag along. So five of us, taking 4 prisoners, headed to Galamir.


	5. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER, CHAPTER 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GIVING SOME BACKGROUND FOR THE MAIN CHARACTERS

CHAPTER 5  
On the way to Galamir, we mostly talked about each other and our life before the tournament. There were no remarkable events so we had a chance to get to know each other very well. Our new team mates Brock and Etri were blacksmiths from the northern continent. While Brock was an enchanter mage, Etri was a summoner. Etri told almost everything about himself and his brother while Brock was a little annoyed by Etri`s openness. Our prisoners first tried to bribe us into releasing them then started threatening us. They became so annoying so we had to gag them. They never tried to escape though; we had our orders to kill them if they attempted.  
At sunset we set our camp and started eating our usual meal. Juniper pulled a refreshing, magically cooled berry juice from her bag, brothers put meat and ale to the table and the wolf conjured desserts for everyone. After some conversation;  
\- “I do not mean to pry but why did you two join the tournament, Brock?” I said to the brothers.  
Brock pondered a bit but he decided to share the story since his chatty brother was going to tell us anyways.  
\- “You will probably laugh at us, but we want to use Magium`s power to beat the sage of the north, Talmak.”  
\- “So you want to be the sage,” asked Kurzon.  
\- “Not entirely. We do not care about being a sage. We just want Talmak beaten and stripped from his sagehood so he can be judged for his crimes.”  
\- “What? Are sages above the law? Can they not be judged?” asked Juniper curiously.  
\- “Well, in theory they are not above the law but, in practice, neither kings nor governors are willing to go after a sage for his crimes against simple town folks. Also, Talmak has the support of many nobles and rich merchants.”  
\- “That is not fair at all,” said Juniper. “What are his crimes?” and asked.  
\- “Too many to count but I can tell what he did to us,” said Brock. Etri`s eyes were tearing up already.  
\- “Four years ago, our village was attacked by a band of giants led by a mage called Gontrok. We were not helpless though. Our father and the warriors of our village were strong. We dug up underground shelters for the villagers. It was a hard battle but we managed to secure the lines and held our ground against them pretty good. Just we were about to launch a counter attack to repel them, Talmak appeared out of nowhere; started attacking the giants randomly with big spells regardless of the collateral damage. He turned to whole thing into a show, throwing huge boulders, raising a colossal rock golem. He killed many giants but destroyed the whole village in the process. His attacks even hit our own warriors. Gontrok fled. The shelter collapsed due to the weight of the golem and all villagers crushed to death. Almost everyone died in cross fire or as a result of Talmak`s thoughtless actions. My Father confronted Talmak for what he did but Talmak accused him of being ungrateful. He killed my father in front of us and said we should thank him for saving us from the giants and left just like that. If it were not for him, everyone would be alive today. We sought justice; spoke to the dwarven kings and other kings from Northern continent. Most of them did not even listen to us. Others said it was a necessary sacrifice and we should not question the wisdom of the sage.”  
It was horrible, nobody dared to speak or say a word. In the end, it was Brock who broke the silence and said; “So that`s our story friends. Now you tell me your story, Rai. How did you become a mutant?”  
I decided to share my story;  
\- “Do you guys know a place called Beacon of hope?” I asked without expecting an answer.  
\- “Yes, I know. It was a human experimentation facility masked as an orphanage. Though it was closed due to the lack of results and funding,” said Kurzon.  
\- “Yes, I am part of those experiments, that's how I became a mutant.”  
\- “Okay but weren't they trying to make artificial mages? not mutants.”  
\- “Mainly, yes. I was a part of a smaller project. There were few of us and we were kept separately from the other group.”  
\- “How did they do it?” asked Etri. He was most interested.  
\- “First, they tested our blood and selected candidates based on the results. They said we had desirable genetic material. Then, they planted mutagens in our bodies. It was a very risky procedure. Most of us died at this stage. They were the lucky ones. They started administering weird fluids and chemicals through our veins. It was an excruciating experience. Some of us developed cysts as a result and died of cancer. They tortured us in the hopes of activating the mutagens. One of the girl`s skin turned into octopus skin with purple circles on it. She grew multiple tentacles; turned into a hideous monster at the end. She was transferred somewhere else. We did not hear from her again. So they finally gave up when nobody mutated in desirable ways. They dropped all of us to different parts of the world and that was the end of it.”  
\- “What about your mutation Rai? You obviously have powers,” asked Juniper.  
\- “My mutation kicked in after I was 15.”  
After a while, everyone started small talk. Juniper and Brock shared their knowledge of magical items. They even exchanged some materials. Brock gave Juniper an enchanted bow string made out of Moonspider`s silk. Apparently when drawn, it could conjure a light arrow; no need to reload. Juniper said she knew a way to install rune sockets to Brock`s axe. They both started tinkering. Etri and Kurzon were having a heated conversation about how to kill a hydra most effectively. Neither was winning.  
I was observing our surroundings and night sky. I always liked watching the stars and enjoying the tranquility. I saw a couple shooting stars and noticed some of the stars were a little brighter than usual. It looked like the star light was magically increased. They were making up letters and words but I did not know the language. I must admit this was a good way of communication.  
Maybe I can ask Juniper and Brock to craft an item for me to write on stars.  
However my happy times did not last long, I could sense ten mages coming our way in an attack formation. They were hiding their auras but there was something eerie about it. They were very close and approaching too fast for humanly possible.


	6. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER, CHAPTER 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Unexpected Threat

CHAPTER 6  
I barely had time to warn my team. As we prepared to take a stance, ten mages jumped from the bushes to the opening we camped. How they bypassed Kurzon`s suggestion spell I had no idea. I sent an electrical current to one of the prisoners. Since they are all connected with shackles, all of them passed out. I did not want them to get caught in crossfire or escape.  
It was Kurzon who attacked first. He sent a frost missile to their leader. He deflected the missile with his staff and then all of them took defensive stances. They were not attacking. I signaled Kurzon to wait.  
\- “What is this? Why are you attacking us?” demanded Brock.  
They did not answer. They were inspecting us. They all wore red monk robes and their heads were shaved. The robes had cut marks everywhere and their staffs were tipped with serrated blades. Their auras gave an eerie vibe of a strange magic I have not encountered before but heard. Suddenly they started chanting a prayer. As they chanted, they started to cut themselves and smeared their blood all over their faces, bodies and their weapons. I noticed that their aura strengthen over the course of this prayer and ritual. “This is not good.”  
\- “What the f.ck is happening? Who the hell are these guys?” asked Etri.  
\- “Be careful, stay on the defensive. They are too dangerous,” I said.  
\- “To hell with defense. I am going offense,” said Etri and yelled. “HAMMERS OF JUSTICE.”  
He summoned 2 ethereal hammers and threw them to the monks. Hammers spun violently and spiraled outward; aiming the monks. Although the monks dodged the hammers easily, it broke their formation. He summoned more and more hammers and sent them to the monks. In little time, he created a tornado made out of ethereal hammers. Hammers materialized to hit the enemies and dematerialized when they came close to us. The hammers were able to recognize the friends and foes. That way, Etri did not need to worry about hitting us. Two monks casted flight spells on them and took the fight to the air.  
\- “You cannot get away from me,” Etri said and yelled “BLACK KING, I summon you.”  
A summoning circle appeared around Etri and a black manticore appeared; soaring to the sky while Etri was on his back. The manticore was obviously trained to fight against mages and warriors; it was not just a wild monster. Another monk lunged at Brock and stabbed him in the heart. Brock did not have the time to block the attack with his shield but the blade could not puncture Brock`s chainmail armor. The armor was heavily enchanted and covering almost all of his body. Although he got pushed back with the force, he managed to swing his axe at the monk after rolling back on the ground. There were three marbles orbiting around the axe`s shaft. One of them launched itself to the monk while growing exponentially. The monk was caught off guard and did not have time to react. I could hear his bones shattering when the rock crushed him to death. Kurzon attacked from the left. He positioned himself perfectly and unleashed a frost nova. He pursued one of the monks and ripped his throat off when he caught him on the wrong foot.  
The chief of the monks and two of the guards attacked me simultaneously, not giving me a chance to slip into the shadow realm. The monks were highly trained and thanks to their augmented stats I was having a hard time deflecting and dodging all of his attacks. My teammates were busy fighting on their own. I did not have a chance against three of them but they were not trying to kill me. Their attack pattern made me believe that they were just trying to capture me alive, barely. As I deflected their leader`s attack, I found myself thrown off balance due to the force behind the blow. I was about to get an inevitable hit to my shoulder, a flash grenade exploded in the middle, blinding and stunning everyone for a while. The Head monk jumped to the safety and I used the distraction to slip into the shadow realm. I should thank Juniper for this. The moment my senses came back up, I got back to the real world and cut off the head of a monk however other one blocked my attack.  
It was mostly over for the monks. Kurzon froze three of them to death. Etri`s manticore ripped two of them to shreds. Brock and I took care of one each.  
The chief monk signaled others to retreat. They stabbed themselves in the shoulder and triggered a transportation spell.  
\- “I am Gonseikai Han. You fought well today and proved your worth. The revelation is true after all. Your blood will serve our god. Until next time, warrior,” said the chief monk and teleported away.  
\- “Who were they and why did they attack us like that?” asked Juniper, still shocked by the gruesome scene.  
I knew who they were. My martial arts teacher mentioned them.  
\- “I believe they are Koyo monks. It is a cult that seeks immortality from a remote island in the Eastern Continent. They worship a minor god called God of Blood. They sacrifice their own blood to enhance their physical and magical abilities. That is a special magic type that can only be done by the God of Blood`s followers.”  
\- “and they are after your blood; that's creepy my friend” said Etri.  
\- “Speaking of creeps. That guy over there is watching us since the beginning of the fight,” said Kurzon.  
There was indeed a mage 300 yards away from us. When he noticed that we were all looking at him, he slowly started walking toward us. This mage was wearing a long black trench coat and a black round hat. In addition to his dark look, he was carrying a simple shovel. He looked more like a grave keeper than a mage. He stopped in front of us with no sign of aggression.  
\- “Hello fellow participants,” he said with a monotone voice.  
\- “Hello strange fella, what can we do for you?” said Brock, trying to understand the guy`s intention.  
\- “Are you gonna bury those bodies?” asked the grave keeper in the same manner as your friend would ask if you were gonna eat that last slice of pizza.  
\- “Umm, no, we will not. Why are you asking?” I said.  
\- “Can I bury them?” asked the grave keeper enthusiastically.   
\- “Sure buddy. Do as you wish but give me a moment,” said Brock and started taking the dead monk`s belongings.  
\- “Are you robbing them?” I asked.  
\- “What? No, I am not ROBBING them. I am LOOTING. You know enchantment materials do not grow on trees. Well, some of them do but not these,” showing me some gems, runic coins and prayer beads, said Brock angrily.  
\- “I am just teasing you, Brock. I know.”  
\- “Hate to interrupt but we need to keep moving. We made a commotion here. I do not want to attract anymore unwanted guest,” said Kurzon, looking at the grave keeper.  
We packed our things and left the area with our prisoners. When I looked back, I saw the grave keeper digging happily.


	7. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER, CHAPTER 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> meeting with the old wise sage

CHAPTER 7  
After putting some distance between us and our last camping ground, we decided to call it a night. Quickly secured the area and set our tents. I took the first watch alone. Etri and Juniper were second and Brock and Kurzon took the last shift. We skipped breakfast and hastened to our destination. We wanted to get in the walls of the city before sunset.  
Around noon, we came across an old mage and a young boy at a crossroad near Galamir.  
\- “Great, another weirdo. I hope this one at least has some sanity. Look at his clothes. Who wears them these days?” said Etri, mocking the mage`s traditional robes.  
\- “That is not an ordinary mage. He is the sage of the West, Azarius.” I said to Etri.  
\- “Oo. Do you think he heard me?” said Etri with a small gasp.  
As we approached, we heard he was speaking to the young man. Maybe he was his apprentice.  
\- “Come Henry, these people seem kind enough,” said Azarius.  
\- “Master Azarius! I can handle this, we do not need to ask for help from strangers,” said Henry. He was obviously embarrassed by something.  
\- “There is no shame in asking for help when you need one. Right, my friend?” He directed his question to me.  
\- “Of course Master Azarius. We would be happy to help you.” I did not know what else to say when the great sage Azarius asked for your help. It must be a very strong foe or a god level challenge considering Azarius needed help to deal with. I just hoped I did not risk my friend’s lives.  
\- “Aah. Thank you, but please, do not call me master. Azarius is just fine. We forgot our provision bag at the inn we stayed yesterday. Would you be kind enough to share some food with us?”  
And there goes my dreams of fighting giant serpents and solving mind-boggling puzzles of ancient ruins. I was pretty sure he could have found a way to get food but maybe he just wanted to interact with other participants.  
\- “It was me who forgot the bag, not Master Azarius,” said Henry, admitting his guilt.  
\- “It is fine young fella. We have plenty of food and we are about to take a lunch break anyways. Let's eat together. The more the merrier. Now tell me do you like mammoth meat?” asked Brock.  
We sat and ate together our usual meals but surprisingly Kurzon went all out to conjure gourmet foods and desserts. I guess he was trying to impress the sage.  
\- “Everything is delicious, my friends and especially the gourmet dishes you prepared. Thank you, Master Wolf. It is truly amazing,” said Azarius.  
\- “Glad you liked it Azarius. Feel free to ask for seconds,” said Kurzon.  
\- “Heey, you never offered us seconds,” exclaimed Etri.  
\- “Well, if you ever said thank you and asked nicely maybe he would have, you idiot,” said Brock and smacked Etri`s head. “Sorry for my brother`s manners.”  
\- “Hahahaa, no problem at all,” said Azarius, enjoying dwarven brother`s banter.  
After a while, Juniper asked the sage very shyly;  
\- “Um, excuse me Master Azarius. Sorry for asking directly but are you knowledgeable in teleportation and space magic?”  
\- “I do not consider myself an expert in that field but I know a thing or two. You can ask anything milady.”  
She asked about how to teleport huge amounts of water to his town from a remote lake.  
\- “Teleporting tonnes of water is very hard. It would be better if you opened a portal to bring the water from the bottom of the lake; that would solve pressure problem too. You will need to build portals. Actually, I have some diagrams and blueprints for a one-way portal. Here you are, you can keep them,” said Azarius and take out some plans and scrolls from his bag. “Be careful though; this portal`s magic is too rough for human teleportation but since you plan to use the device to bring water, it should not be a problem,” and he gave them to Juniper.  
As Juniper took the plans, she could hardly contain her happiness. She hugged the sage and  
\- “Thank you Master Azarius, I do not know how to repay you,” said.  
\- “Do not mention it, just make sure to build that irrigation system for your village,” Azarius said, overjoyed by Juniper`s pure reaction. Afterwards, the sage diverted his gaze to me and to my sword:  
\- “May I take a look at your sword young man, of course if that's okay,” said Azarius.  
Although I was not eager to hand my sword over to other people, I could not decline the sage after what he did for Juniper. He carefully inspected the sword.  
\- “This is not a mere magical sword; actually it is not magic at all. May I ask where did you find it?”  
\- “I did not find it. It was bequeathed to me by my sword master. He got it from his master. What is it, if not magic?” I asked.  
\- “It is hard to tell but its aura is not like any magical sword I have seen. I would say that the sword is made out of tiny independent parts that work as one unit. It is similar to magitech, without the magic part.”  
\- “So is it just tech?” asked Etri.  
\- “How so?” asked Juniper. “The sword can cast magic; we all have seen it.”  
\- “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic my friends. However this is even more advanced than anything we have in our world.”  
\- “That is from another world. Wow, that's cool.” said Etri.  
\- “Our world is connected to countless realms and dimensions. This is from one of them with very advanced technology,” he said, giving my sword back to me. “Care to explain what you can do with it,” and asked.  
\- “Well, I can open a rift to another world and come back here. Since my presence is removed from this world, I can use it to reposition myself and evade attacks. That's all it can do, really.”  
\- “Can you mention this other world, please?” asked Sage.  
\- “I call it shadow world due to lack of colors but it is more like a mirror world. I can still see and hear the real world. The air is not breathable so I have to hold my breath when I am there. Magic does not work there. Neither mages nor items can cast magic. Also only static objects occupy physical space that I can interact if I focus. Moving objects and living beings cast mere reflections with no weight. I believe it has something to do with the kinetic and potential energy. I do not stay there too long to inspect everything.”  
\- “Most interesting, I guess you learn a new thing every day. So, what is the name of your sword?” asked Azarius.  
\- “Umm, it does not have a name. I did not name it.”  
\- “You should name it,” said Kurzon and Azarius at the same, almost scolding me.  
\- “Worry not, my friends. Leave it to me,” said Etri enthusiastically. “I name it Black Death, because it is black and you bring death upon your enemies.”  
\- “I am not naming my sword black death, Etri,” I said.  
\- “Okay, how about ghost maker, because you are like a ghost or or…”  
\- “How about you shut up and let the man name his own sword,” said Brock, smacked Etri`s head again.  
After careful consideration I decided to name my sword in the loving memory of the woman who saved my life. “The sword`s name is Kara,” I declared.  
\- “Very good my friends. Now, you will have to excuse us, we need to leave. And Etri, yes I heard you.” said Azarius to Etri with a fake menacing tone.  
After that, we waved goodbye to Azarius and Henry. Before sunset, we were at the gates of Galamir with our prisoners.


	8. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER, CHAPTER 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the first objective

CHAPTER 8  
We handed the prisoners over to the garrison but were told to come back in the morning to speak with the General for our reward. We went to a local inn and while eating our dinner;  
\- “Juniper, can you craft me a magical pen that writes in stars,” I asked Juniper and explained the team we could communicate with starlight in case we were separated.  
\- “So, you noticed the ancient language written in the stars the other day. It was a language used mostly by dragon hunters. I can teach all of you that language; and show how to write in stars with magic to Brock and Etri. You and Juniper can use the pens,” said Kurzon.  
\- “Wow, Kurzon, is there anything you do not know,” said Juniper impressed. “I can craft those pens. I just need to buy liquid light and magic ink.”  
\- “I need one more thing guys if you do not mind,” showing my spool of elven steel wire, “Can you guys forge me a whip like weapon from this? I could really use a mid-range attack in my arsenal.”  
\- “Of course my friend. We will work on it tomorrow,” said Brock and Etri added “Oh, that's easy. Consider it done.”  
In the morning, I and Kurzon headed to the garrison. Juniper and dwarfs went to the market for supplies and to work on their crafts. General Adamantius accepted us immediately. He was a big man with wide shoulders and a shiny armor, and his smile was even bigger.  
\- “General Kurzon welcome. It is an honor to have you here,” he said and ordered some refreshments for us.  
\- “General?” I asked in shock.  
\- “It was a long time ago, it is not worth mentioning,” said Kurzon.  
\- “Believe me swordsman, it is worth mentioning. Most generals stay in their tents but Kurzon was always in the front lines. He saved my life once in a battle against the orc clans many years ago. We were allied with the animal kingdom back then. Well, you are here for the reward. Thank you for saving that village swordsman and bringing those bandits to justice,” said General. “Those are not just common bandits, they are part of an anarchist group trying to eliminate all human kings and authority figures of monster clans and animals in Varathia,” he added. “They call themselves true children of Varathia.”  
\- “No problem. Galamir was on our way according to the sergeant anyways,” I said.  
\- “Yes, about sergeant`s letter. For the sake of your service, I will tell you your first objective. It will be announced in a couple days anyways. So you will get a bit of a head start,” said General. “You need to bring a glowing pinecone to this city and make it glow.”  
\- “That's it?” I asked. “It sounds too easy.”  
\- “But, it is not,” said Kurzon. “I can get a glowing pinecone easily but the problem is to make it glow. You need massive magical energy to make them glow. I cannot do it. Etri`s raw magical energy is more than that of mine but even his energy won't be enough.”  
\- “What do we do then? Is there any other way?”  
\- “I can also help you with that my friends. There is a small kingdom called Kemeria between Thilias and here. Its King has a machine that activates magical plants and makes them glow. He hired a Lessathi to build it a couple years back for a magical rose for his queen. It made the rose glow and bloom. He must still have it in his vault. Maybe you can buy it or borrow it. I cannot guarantee it will work but it's worth a shot,” said General Adamantius.  
We thanked the general for the reward and the information and headed to the market to meet our friends. Juniper crafted a crossbow from the silk of the moonspider and they managed to install two rune sockets to Brock`s axe. “Anymore would overburden the weapon,” said Juniper.  
\- “I will be able to cast more earth magic with this, I just need an earth mage to help me forge some runes,” said Brock.  
\- “We also finished the light pens and your wire weapon, here you are,” said Juniper. “You can use the pen as a flashlight as well,” she added.  
\- “Wow that was fast,” I inspected my new weapon a bit confused. “So, you made me a yoyo?” I asked Juniper and Brock.  
\- “It is not a yo-yo,” said Juniper with a pouting expression.  
\- “Well, actually it is a yo-yo,” said Etri.  
\- “Okay, but it is entirely made out of elven steel and Brock enchanted it with the best durability enchantments,” said Juniper.  
\- “She is right brother. It looks like a toy but it is deadly especially when you apply your electric. You just need to master it,” said Brock.  
\- “I appreciate that. We also have news. We got our first objectives for the tournament from the garrison general,” I said and explained. We decided to go to Kemeria as a team.  
We shared the reward money and went back to the market to get our final needs for our departure. I entered a store that sells scrolls and purchased a teleportation scroll that works for the whole party and a scroll that briefly gives me far-sight. As we met outside the city gates to depart for our destination, we were approached by a girl. She was wearing a dirty jumpsuit tied around her waist, a tank top and goggles but under all that oil and dirt she was pretty.  
\- “Where you're headed travelers?” she asked.  
\- “We are going to Kemeria,” I replied a little bit struck by her beauty and red hairs.  
\- “It is very far, but not with our invention. BEHOLD; ‘auto-buus’,” she showed us a stage coach with six wooden wheels coated with rosin. There was a driver seat and 6 passenger seats behind.  
\- “Never heard of an ‘auto-buus’. What will draw it?” asked Etri.  
\- “That's because we invented it aaand no one will draw it. It is magically propelled.”  
\- “Who is we?” asked Brock.  
A goblin came out under the coach and introduced himself “The name is Kir, at your service,” like a salesman and he conjured a small fiery explosion on his palm to show us he was a fire mage.  
\- “And my name is Kiki, your trusted driver. We will take you to Kemeria way faster than you could ever go on foot, of course for a small fee,” said the girl.  
\- “Hold on there, we never agreed to that,” I said.  
\- “You will agree if you are smart,” Kiki said in a cheeky manner.  
\- “Well, do you guys want to take the coach?” I asked my friends.  
\- “YES, we do,” said Etri and Juniper together. “I have never been in a magical vehicle,” added Juniper.  
We paid our fees and took our seats. “You guys did this before, right?” I asked to Kiki.  
\- “Nope, this is our first voyage,” she said and closed the door, taking her seat in the front cabin.  
Kir took his place next to Kiki and sent fiery sparks down a pipe to the magical engine. The engine jerked the entire vehicle and roared onward.


	9. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER, CHAPTER 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kiki and Kir

CHAPTER 9  
We drove on a highway to Kemeria used by caravans and travelers. They got visibly disturbed as we passed them with great speed. One of the merchants cursed at us with anger when the auto-buus spooked the trampler beast drawing a carriage. That put a smile on Kiki`s face.  
\- “Are we safe on this road?” I asked, “We are getting a lot of attention.”  
\- “Do not worry, these parts are protected and watched by soldiers and noble houses of Galamir. We are safe on this road,” said Kiki.  
As I inspected the coach, I noticed that the vehicle was actually an engineering marvel. Each wheel was individually powered and equipped with coil springs for suspension. Even on rough terrain, we did not shake much. The coach was completely covered with a metal frame and fortified glass windows. While Kiki handled steering, brakes and clutch, Kir`s magic governed how much force the magical engine applied to the rotator shaft. Etri and Juniper were having a blast watching outside from the windows in awe. Brock was asleep and Kurzon was not feeling well.  
\- “Motion sickness?” I asked to Kurzon.  
\- “Yes, I have not been any vehicle before, I really like to feel the ground. This is definitely not for me,” said Kurzon.  
\- “Can you not cast a spell that cures dizziness?”  
\- “I can cast to others but not to myself,” said Kurzon.  
\- “We do not know that spell Kurzon, sorry,” said Etri.  
After hearing our conversation, Kiki slowed down and “Are you good back there? Do not throw up, okay; I cleaned the floor this morning.”  
\- “Not me,” said Etri. “Kurzon is getting motion sick; maybe we should take a break.”  
\- “Okaaay. Kir almost depleted his energy. He needs to rest anyways,” said Kiki and stopped the auto-buus. “Come on grandpa wolf, let's go outside.” She jumped up and opened the doors.  
We woke up Brock and all of us stepped out to get some air and have lunch. We drove until nightfall none-stop. In the evening, we set up our camp. After dinner, I decided to get to know our drivers.  
\- “How do you know each other?” I asked to Kir and Kiki.  
\- “My real family left me for dead but Kiki`s father found me. Most people would not think twice about killing a goblin child but he raised me as his own son. He even hired a mage to teach me the basics when he discovered I have magic powers. He also got me some legal status in Galamir so the guards would not attack me on sight,” Kir said.  
\- “My father was a cartwright. He taught us everything he knew but as you can see we improved a lot on his work,” said Kiki.  
\- “How does the magical engine work?” asked Juniper.  
\- “I am a fire elementalist, combustion style user. There are two chambers in the engine, I create combustion inside the chambers and the air pressure created by the explosion pushes the pistons and pistons rotate the main shaft. Maintaining the right amount of combustion is the trick. Too less, it won't move, too much you will break the engine,” said Kir.  
After our conversation, Kurzon taught everyone how to write on stars and basic commands of ancient language just enough to give our location and build short sentences. We decided to work on the ancient language every night. Kir also joined our little training session and suggested that we could call them using this method. The dwarves were busy setting up the tents; I noticed that Kiki was watching the stars lying on top of the roof of the vehicle.  
\- “Mind if I join you?” I asked.  
\- “Sure, come on up,” she said, making room for me. “Do you know that star is the northern star, it never moves so you can find your direction,” showing me the star Polaris.  
\- “Yeah, I know.”  
\- “Do you know how to find it? I can show you,” said Kiki enthusiastically.  
\- “Umm, yep, I know that too. Thanks though.”  
\- “What you guys did back there was amazing. I wish I could do magic, I sometimes envy Kir,” she said.  
\- “Well, if it is any consolation, I am not a mage either. That never stopped me from doing what like. Sometimes I wish I could fly but I never envy mages. You know if life gives you lemons…”  
\- “You gotta make lemonade,” said Kiki completing my sentence. “You know flying is my dream too, one day I will make an air plaan and we can fly together then.”  
\- “You mean an airplane.”  
\- “No, I am pretty sure I heard someone call them an air plaan.”  
\- “Okay, boss whatever you say. Why do you want to build an airplane? For business?” I asked.  
\- “No. No business. Just for me and Kir. You can come too, you are cool. I want to see other continents. High mountains of northern realm and endless deserts of southern continent,” she said. “Have you seen them?” and asked.  
\- “I have been in the Northern Continent once.”  
\- “Are the mountains really high?” she asked.  
\- “Yes, they are very high and covered in mist and snow. You cannot even see the peaks. You will need a guide to navigate around the mountains. ”  
\- “Well then, maybe you take me there when I build the air plaan,” she said. “That would be nice,” and added after a brief period. I noticed she was blushing.  
\- “Yeah, maybe I can take you there when you build the airplane. That would truly be nice,” I said.  
After a brief period of silence, she suddenly leaned on me and we kissed.


	10. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a new team member. (this is Reddit user ArGM2015's character)

CHAPTER 10  
We continued our journey with great speed with the first lights of the day. As we got closer to Kemeria, the road conditions got better. When we arrived in Kemeria, it was still morning. We promised to call Kiki and Kir when we needed their service again. They went to the merchant's guild to find more passengers after getting a reference letter from us.  
Although Kemeria was a small city, it was beautiful. Their walls stood strong, the streets were clean and well maintained. People were respectful to each other. There were soldiers with dark blue uniforms everywhere. The most interesting thing was the semi-transparent dome, which protected the whole city. The King's palace was at the dome`s center. As we made our way there, a projection appeared on the city. The person in the projection introduced himself as Golmyck, the King of Thilias, and gave us our first objective, which we already knew. At the palace, we requested an interview with the King and luckily, he was not busy. The palace was not extravagant but it was elegant. We got to the throne room. The King was in his mid-60`s. He was wearing a simple crown on his grey hair. We saluted the King accordingly as it was customary in the presence of a King, although he was obviously not interested in pleasantries.  
\- “Welcome participants. You are in the presence of the King of Kemeria, Bellinor. State your business,” said the King's advisor.  
I inquired about the King`s magical machine we needed for our first objective. This time it was the King who replied to me:  
\- “I have no need for that machine anymore. However, you have to earn it; you have to do something for our Kingdom in return. Recently, our lands have been plagued by a banshee. She murdered an entire town and turned a trading post into her lair. I dispatched a group of soldiers and a band of mages like you but… none of them returned. I cannot afford to send my elite group currently. If you can kill the banshee, the machine is yours.”  
I looked at my teammates and all of them nodded. We accepted the king's quest and left the palace. Brock wanted to go to the market square to find an earth mage and gather some supplies for the journey ahead. As we passed near a local tavern on the way to the market, I picked up a familiar aura. I told my friends to go without me and I would catch up with them later. I entered the tavern and, of course, I found him playing chess with a random stranger. The stranger was losing miserably so I had no choice but to butt in, in order to make it a fair fight. Amran always acted like he did not want me to interfere with his game but I knew he indeed enjoyed the added challenge. He was surprised to see me. After the game, which Amran won, we sat at the counter and ordered some drinks:  
\- “You really surprised me, Rai. What are you doing here? Did you hear the objectives? They are crazy!” said Amran.   
\- “Oh, yeah. I was not expecting something like that. You know, we may have found a way to complete that objective. The King of Kemeria asked us to hunt a banshee and in return he will give us a machine that makes the pine cone glow. Why don't you join our group until we pass the first trial? Others would be happy, too” I said and shared what Kurzon told me about the glowing pinecones with him.  
\- “Thanks for the offer, Rai. I would love to join your group and I would gladly hunt that banshee with you,” Amran said.  
After Amran agreed to be part of our team, I paid to the innkeeper and we left to meet our teammates in the market. It appears Brock already crafted two earth magic runes with the help of an earth elementalist and they got what we needed from the market. Kurzon and Juniper saluted Amran and I introduced the Dwarven brothers to him. Etri particularly took a liking to Amran when he learned he was a fire mage.  
\- “Finally dude, we have a fire elementalist. It is almost like the group is not complete without a fire mage, you know,” said Etri.  
\- “Balance is indeed a virtue. Thanks for having me in your group,” responded Amran.  
As we left the walls of Kemeria, Kurzon pulled a map from a pocket universe and unfolded it in front of our eyes.  
\- “This is the trade post, now the banshee`s lair. It is not too far; if we hurry we can be there before the sun sets,” said the wolf, casually pointing the location on the map.  
\- “Did you just use telekinesis and space magic?” asked Brock.  
\- “Yes, is that too surprising to you? As you can see I do not have opposable thumbs and do not carry a backpack. Most elite guardians learn basic telekinesis and can create pocket space to store some items.”  
\- “Oh yeah, that's our bad. We forgot you were a legendary general from Animal Kingdom, General Kurzon,” said Etri, smirking.  
\- “Who? Kurzon? A general?” asked Amran in disbelief.  
\- “Yeah, we were shocked too,” I said.  
\- “Yes, I was a general, but now I am not. Can we close this topic now? We have a job to do. Now start marching,” said Kurzon with a commanding voice.  
\- “Sir, yes sir,” yelled Amran and Etri at the same time and they started marching like soldiers.  
\- “I am going to be frank with you, I do not think those two will stop talking about it anytime soon,” I said to Kurzon. He was going to say something but instead just gave a hopeless sigh.  
Amran and Etri kept asking questions about the Kingdoms and the history of Varathia. It was a very long walk and Kurzon told us about the king of the dragons, the great fox spirit and the creator of the island. He talked about stillwinter wars and the ancients. While listening to the wolf`s stories, we did not realize we arrived to our destination. The southern trade post of Kemeria was inside of a mountain. While the sun was setting, we entered through the archway structure, supported by two white marble columns, to the main hall. The further end of the hall was dark like a bottomless pit. As our eyes adjusted to the dim light created by the dying light of the sun, we saw the horrors our host caused; there were skeletons everywhere, bodies ripped apart. The floor was slick and muddy, moist with blood and gut; littered with bones, limbs and feces.


	11. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monster are scared, too.

CHAPTER 11  
\- “Argh, the stench is unbearable,” said Kurzon. “Be careful everyone, we do not want to end up like them.”  
Juniper threw up everything she ate at lunch. “I am sorry. This is just horrible. How can a person cause this much agony?” she said while Etri was helping her up.  
\- “It is not a person, it's a monster. She showed no mercy, she deserves no mercy,” said Brock and spit on his palms, strengthening his grasp on his axe and shield.  
I switched the light attached to my light-pen on and start investigating the bodies, or rather, what was left of them. Some bodies still had the dark blue uniform parts so I figured these belonged to the soldiers that the King had sent here. I collected the dog tags I could find. Some of the bones were too small to have belonged to a grown up. What did not make sense, however, was why there were so much feces everywhere. As we proceeded into the depths of the hall, Juniper turned on her flashlight too. Amran created a spinning fire ball to illuminate his surroundings and Kurzon sent 3 light spheres up in the air. As those stuck to the ceiling of the hall, they revealed what had produced all that excrement. There were hundreds of bat-like creatures hanging from the ceiling. As they were awakened by the light, they started screeching. The creatures had red furs and bat-like wings. They were twice as big as bats and they had an extra pair of ears instead of eyes. Their jaws were disproportionately big and looked like bear traps. They all took flight and created a massive batnado around us. We have been swarmed by hundreds of them.  
\- “COME ON, LET'S KILL SOME VERMIN,” shouted Etri and summoned 2 ethereal hammers, throwing them at the bat creatures. “Hammers of Justice, Hammers of Justice, Hammers of Justice” he shouted and created 4, 8, 16 hammers; doubling the amounts hammers every time he yelled the words.  
\- “Stop saying it, goddamnit! Just do it,” yelled Brock madly. As if trying to infuriate his brother even further, “HAMMERS OF JUSTICEEEE,” Etri screamed with full force and summoned even more hammers, sent them flying; creating his own tornado made out of hammers.  
Brock sent a powerful stream of sand using his axe`s new runic ability and Amran sent fire bolts, while Kurzon attacked with frost missiles. Although creatures seemed to have some resistance against heat based attacks, they still died when struck by a direct hit. As they got close to me, I started slicing them in half. Limbs and body parts fell all around me. Juniper threw a couple of fragment grenades but they were not as effective as she hoped. There were just so many of them and they had started to get behind our defenses.  
\- “Use your sonic bombs,” I told Juniper, “it may affect their sense of hearing.”  
Juniper`s sonic bombs ended up being super effective against the creatures. They started falling like yellow leaves in autumn; some of them dead, some of them stunned. Shock waves created by the sonic blasts also scared off some of them. Amran and Kurzon took care of the remaining ones by sniping them from afar.  
\- “That wasn't too bad,” said Amran “if that’s all the banshee can throw at us, we should be out of here with the banshee`s head in no time.”  
As Amran finished his sentence, we heard a loud growl. “You just had to open your mouth, didn't you,” said Etri. From the darkness, a muscular, red, leopard like creature leaped out. It had wings like a manticore but they were just too small to lift it in the air. Instead of feathers, the wings were covered with spikes. A very long and pointed bone was protruding at the tip of each wing, pointing forward, ready to strike and pierce any prey. This monster`s head was oddly similar to the bat creatures, though. Again, four big ears and a jaw like a bear trap.  
\- “I think that's the mother,” said Etri.  
\- “You think? What gave it away?” said Amran. “What is this thing?” he asked.  
\- “I have no idea; I have never seen anything like this,” I said.  
Kurzon launched a massive frontal attack with his freezing beam. Instead of dodging, the mother countered Kurzon`s beam with its own attack. It breathed fire just like a dragon. The flames engulfed Kurzon`s freezing beam and made its way directly towards us. Brock intercepted the flames just in time with his shield spell, though we could still feel the searing heat.  
\- “I cannot hold it any longer, do something brother,” said Brock.  
I quickly slipped into the shadow realm. Amran and Kurzon attacked from the sides and Etri launched a volley of hammers to the creature. It suddenly retaliated by lunging towards Kurzon and tried to impale him with his spiked wing. I stepped out of the shadow realm right next to the creature and sliced its wing off just before it could hit Kurzon. It screeched in pain and swatted its paw and managed to hit me in the abdomen, slicing open my skin there and sending me flying backwards. Amran conjured a powerful fire blast and aimed it at the creature. Although it was not very effective, he successfully distracted the monster, long enough for Kurzon to jump onto the creature`s back and bite the other wing off in the meantime. As he applied his frost breath, the creatures wing began crumbling like an icicle between Kurzon`s fangs. As it got struck by Etri`s hammers and Juniper`s light arrows, Brock lunged at the monster and dug his axe into its head, splitting its skull into two.  
After the creature fell to the floor lifeless, we heard a clapping sound and a very high pitched voice. “Bravo, you managed to kill my pet. Now, you can all die in peace knowing you have achieved others could not,” said the voice. As we looked up, we saw the banshee floating up in the air, slowly descending towards us in an upside down position. She was a true monstrosity. The banshee was completely naked, though there was nothing appealing about it. Her skin was grey like the smog that covers heavily industrialized cities. She was so skinny that you could count her ribs. I could see her yellowish, fang-like teeth from her open mouth, but I could not tell if she was grinning or if her mouth was simply stretched back to her ears due to the deformation of her skin. There was a fetid pool of purple energy where her eyes should have been, churning and twisting.  
\- “Would you mind stepping aside, my dear? I do not want to harm your body, since I will need it when I am done with your friends,” said the banshee. “This body is already decaying. Yours should do for a couple of weeks,” she said, staring at Juniper. Juniper shot the banshee with her crossbow as a reply, however the arrow ricocheted off of the banshee`s spherical magic shield. “Aww, you even brought a toy with you. How cute!”  
Kurzon had enough of her nonsense and sent a huge frost missile towards her. As the missile hit her shield, it created a powerful frost implosion. However the banshee seemed to be only minorly inconvenienced by this attack; she quickly and effortlessly replenished the shield.  
\- “What? No chit-chat? So eager to die, aren't you, you little dog?” she said angrily and clapped her hands, pressing them against each other as if trying to crush a walnut in-between.  
A black hole suddenly materialized above us, pulling everyone up and in. I barely had the time to react and plunge my sword to the ground, rooting myself so the vacuum could not lift me up. Though my friends were not so fortunate, I saw them getting crushed in agony by the black hole`s force; pushed against each other brutally as the black hole gained more and more rotational power. I had to act quickly if I was to save my friends. I pulled my sword off the ground and made my way to the center of the vacuum. As I crashed into my friends, I sliced open a dimensional doorway and let my momentum carry us into the shadow realm. Escaping from the black hole`s grasp, we all fell down on the floor. I quickly tried to warn my friends not to breathe, but it was too late. Brock and Juniper were already panting. If we did not get back to the material world, they were going to pass out due to lack of oxygen. On a positive note, the banshee had already dispelled the black hole and frantically started searching us. I opened another doorway and we stepped out of the shadow realm.  
Taking advantage of the Banshee`s confusion, Kurzon attacked her with frost spells, Amran sent another volley of fire bolts, and Etri summoned a dozen of hammers. After Brock and Juniper returned their breathing back to normal, they joined the attack with their ranged weapons as well. Unfortunately, the fall aggravated my wound and I was not going to be of much help against an airborne enemy. The banshee`s shield was too strong. All of our attacks were being deflected by the shield. As we wore ourselves out, the banshee gained the upper hand and started attacking. She braced herself and conjured a score of light balls. As she opened her arms, imitating an explosion, the light balls burst into tiny shooting stars. The projectiles were too fast and sharp. I managed to deflect a couple of them but got hit by one in the left leg. They even punctured Brock`s enchanted chainmail armor and wounded him. Kurzon`s stamina and energy was depleting quickly... This was not looking good for us. For a second, I felt useless and guilty for bringing my friends here, but there was no time to brood. I did not train all my life to get killed here. There must be some weakness we could exploit. I began scanning the banshee with my aura sense. Her shield was made of pure energy. Also, it was being fed and replenished the exact moment it got damaged. The energy streams coming from her back was converging in front of her chest. It seemed flawless… until she turned her back to me. There, I noticed a relatively weak point in the spherical shield directly behind her lumbar spine. If we could hit that point with a powerful attack, it might be able to break banshee`s shield. I quickly jogged over to Amran.  
\- “This is not good, Rai. My fire is not strong enough to break the damn shield,” said Amran, who was clearly frustrated.  
\- “How about your new power you mentioned? It should be strong enough to break through!”  
\- “I do not know how to control it, Rai… I… cannot cast it at will.”  
\- “Well, it is now or never, my friend. You are the strongest hitter in the group. We believe in you,” I said and showed him where he needed to hit the shield. “We will draw her attention away. When you get the chance, kill her.”  
I took Juniper`s crossbow and told her to cloak herself.  
\- “Come to me everyone, we will attack together.”  
The dwarves came closer, and Kurzon approached me with a doubtful look in his eyes. He was right to doubt my actions. By gathering in one place, we were making an easy target for the banshee. This had to work or we were going to die. As we all attacked at the same time, the banshee charged her star explosion spell. Our attacks got blocked by banshee`s shield… but it did not matter. She had miscalculated. She turned her back to Amran. Suddenly, like a lighthouse beacon that pierces the darkness of the night, Amran illuminated the dark hall with a powerful, transcendent beam of light bursting from his palm. All it took was a split second. The banshee saw her own shadow casted in the ceiling. I saw her demise; I saw the fear of death and the fear of the unknown on her monstrous face. The beam of light eradicated the banshee`s shield and incinerated her body. As her blackened skull fell to the ground, we simply watched as if the rest of the world froze in time.  
It was Etri who broke the silence. “Dude, couldn't you have done that earlier?” he said in utter shock and awe.  
\- “Holy smokes… I did it… Etri, I don't think that I would have been able to do it before… I don't even know where it came from…” said Amran.  
\- “I told you. I knew you could do it,” I said. “That was very impressive, young mage,” added Kurzon.  
Brock put the Banshee`s skull in his backpack. “Can we please leave this place now?” asked Juniper.  
\- “Yeah, you do not have to ask twice,” Etri and I said at the same time.   
After Kurzon healed everyone`s wounds, we left the trading post. When we put enough distance between us and the post, we set our camp to spend the rest of the night.


	12. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AN UNEXPECTED SETBACK KEEPING OUR GROUP COMPLETING THEIR FIRST OBJECTIVE, FOR NOW.

CHAPTER 12  
\- “What's for dinner?” asked Amran.  
\- “Mammoth meat and dwarven ale,” replied Etri. “I hope you like them.”  
\- “I've... never tried mammoth meat and I do not drink ale,” Amran said.  
\- “No worries! I still have a little bit of berry juice and Kurzon can conjure food,” said Juniper.  
After securing our campground, we all sat around our beautifully well-lit bonfire and celebrated our victory. “What's the plan after getting the machine? Does it make any pinecone glow? Should we pick some up on the road?” asked Brock, while sucking the marrow out of a rib bone.  
\- “No, not any pinecone, a special type only grows in sacred forests. Leave that part to me. I still have friends who can help me find one without angering the fox spirit,” said Kurzon.  
\- “Oh, yeah. I totally forgot about the fox. I guess she won't be happy about all that mages who will try to steal her special pinecones,” said Brock.  
\- “I do not care about her,” said the wolf.  
\- “Dude, that light show you did back there was amazing. Who taught you that?” Etri asked Amran.  
\- “No one. That's what really scares me. I didn't know I had the ability to cast such spells until my first battle during this tournament. Even now, I simply have no idea what the extent of this power is. It just comes... instinctively, you know? It's not as if I've practiced for years."  
After briefly studying ancient language, everyone went to sleep in their tents. Amran and I took the first guard watch. When I returned to the bonfire after taking a leak in the woods, I found Amran speaking to himself, again.  
\- “Hey, man. Who are you talking to this time?” I asked in a casual manner.  
\- “Umm... the usual. Talking to myself like an old buffoon," replied Amran, shakily.  
I sat next to him, hoping for a more elaborate answer.   
"Rai, do you know what an ethereal is?" asked Amran.   
"Of course!" I replied,   
"And... do you remember how I told you that I mastered fire elementalism in barely three weeks?" he continued. I nodded, still unsure of what he meant.   
"Well, can you connect the dots?"   
And I suddenly understood: Amran is an ethereal. That perfectly explains what he mentioned and, to some extent perhaps, his more powerful, light-centered abilities.   
"So, all this time, you were communing with your spirit? That's awesome, Amran!" I exclaimed, but Amran seemed dejected.  
"What I don't understand is, why wouldn't Narma tell me about this light ability? He surely knows about it... after all, he had taught me everything else there was to know," murmured Amran.  
Seeing him so clouded by his thoughts, I decided to try and cheer him up. “So, do you wanna play chess?” I asked. “Though I must tell you, I haven't played for a very long time.”   
“Yes, sure,” said Amran, who seemed relieved.  
After three matches, which I lost, the end of our shift in the middle of our fourth match. Etri and Juniper took the second watch, while Brock and Kurzon took the last one. After a quick breakfast, we moved towards the city of Kemeria to receive our reward.  
As we approached our destination, we noticed a thick layer of black smoke in the sky. It turned out the smoke was coming out of the city of Kemeria. Some parts of the city were still on fire, and, more importantly, the semi-transparent dome that protected the city was gone.  
“It looks like they got attacked, brother,” said Brock.  
“Let's go and find out what happened.”  
The city gate was closed and there were dozens of soldiers guarding the gate.  
“Hold there. Nobody is allowed in the city. Turn back now,” said one of the guards.  
“King is expecting us and we have news for him,” I said, showing the letter the King had given us.  
“We will escort you to the palace, but do not expect a warm welcome in there,” said the guard after inspecting the letter.  
“What happened?” I asked.  
“We were attacked yesterday. The bandits attempted to murder the King and set the whole city on fire. There were multiple casualties, too,” the guard said as we passed a couple of soldiers putting bodies in body bags. The once jolly market square now resembled a war zone.  
When we arrived at the palace, the King's advisor took us to the throne room. The king looked too old and weary as if he had aged twenty years in one night. I observed him with my aura sense but his crown was magically concealing his aura, though I did not need to use my aura sense in order to see his state of mind. When he saw us, he got disappointed. He was definitely expecting someone else.   
“We are sorry for the attack. Please accept my condolences for your losses but we brought news, we killed the banshee,” I said after saluting the King. Brock gave the banshee`s burnt skull and the fallen soldier's dog tags to the King's advisor.  
“You did a great service to us. Thank you. However, I am unable to fulfill my end of the bargain at this moment,” said the King.  
“What do you mean you can`t? With all due respect, your highness, we made a deal. You cannot back away now,” said Brock, interrupting the King.  
\- “Master Dwarf, you better not interrupt a king, especially in the middle of his own court,” said the King, scolding Brock. “I cannot give you the machine because I do not have it. The bandits who attacked us yesterday broke into our vault and stole our royal jewel along with some other magical artifacts. Your machine was gone too.”  
\- “Please forgive my friend`s manners, your highness. Is there any way to get the stolen items back?” asked Kurzon politely.  
\- “My elite squad will be back in a couple days. I will dispatch them once they arrive. They should be able to retrieve the items.”  
\- “The bandits will be long gone by that time.”  
\- “I cannot afford to weaken my army by sending my men after the bandits. We are having problems with the King of Ollendor. However, you are free to chase the bandits, Master Wolf, though I must warn you, they are no ordinary bandits. They are a part of a very powerful anarchist organization called the True Children of Varathia.”  
\- “This wouldn't be our first encounter with them but we are under no obligation to bring back any item they stole from you.”  
\- “Correct! How about a new deal then? Bring back the royal jewel and I will reward you with 1000 gold pieces. What do you say?”  
\- “Alright. That's more like it,” said Etri.  
\- “Your Highness, we will accept the deal but we do not want your gold,” I said.  
\- “What? We don’t…” said Etri, but Brock silenced him by poking him with his elbow. “That's right. We do not want your gold,” continued Etri. “What do we want then, Rai?” he whispered, though very audibly.  
\- “We will bring your jewel back, but in return, we want you to abolish slavery,” I said.  
After a brief silence, a skinny man with extravagant clothing started laughing. He looked and acted like one of the King's advisors, maybe he was a member of the King's court.  
\- “What kind of mockery is this? Why does a stranger interfere with our internal affairs? Just so you know young man, slaves are a very important part of Varathian culture, society and economy. We cannot abolish slavery just because you want us to.”  
\- “I am not a stranger, nobleman. I was born in Olmnar as a Varathian, and I am sure your economy can survive without the slaves,” I said angrily.  
\- “Liar! I will have you executed for this insolence,” said the skinny man.  
\- “SILENCE! That's enough. I will not accept any arguments in my court on this day,” the King said.  
\- “But my King…”  
\- “I said, that's enough, Baron Redring. Do not make me repeat myself,” said the King with a weary tone. The Baron opened his mouth to speak but decided against it. He backed into the corner of the courtroom while staring at us spitefully.  
After contemplating for a moment, King announced his decision:  
\- “Alright, swordsman. Bring the royal jewel back in seven days and I will abolish the slavery in my Kingdom,” he said and turned to his advisor “Duke Whyte, please make the necessary arrangements.”  
King's advisor told us the bandits escaped to the north, towards the Mist Valley. Apparently, they took control of a fort that once belonged to the Ancients. “That's where you can find them, but the real challenge will be finding the fort,” he said. We left the city without dawdling in pursuit of the bandits.


	13. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in the pursuit of the bandits

We made haste to catch up with the bandits but they were at least 6-8 hours ahead of us. Etri and his manticore Black King went ahead in order to scout and find any tracks the bandits might have left. He was able to find their track, which leads us into a forest bordering the mist valley. Kurzon stopped us before entering the forest.  
\- “This is bad, guys. This forest and the mist valley spread for hundreds of miles from East to West. If we lose their track, there is no way we can find the fort and retrieve the royal jewel in seven days. Just simply going North won`t help us,” said Kurzon.  
\- “Sorry, I am not trying to imply anything but wolves are supposed to have strong noses. Can you not follow their smell?” asked Juniper to Kurzon.  
\- “That's fine, dear. Unfortunately, no. Sense of smell is the first thing to deteriorate as you age.”  
\- “Ahem!” exclaimed Etri.  
\- “What now?” Brock replied.  
\- “This looks like a job for the Earth Dragon! Don`t you think so, brother?” Etri said like a schmuck.  
\- “Hmph, here we go again,” said Brock, shaking his head in disapproval.  
\- “What? A dragon? You can summon a dragon?” asked Juniper in disbelief.  
I must admit, it even surprised me. I knew Etri had a huge pool of magical energy, but summoning a dragon seemed way out of his league.  
\- “Step back everyone,” Etri said and signaled us to clear the area. “Come forth Earth Dragon, I summon you,” he shouted.  
As soon as Etri finished his sentence, a very big summoning circle suddenly appeared in front of us. The light coming from the circle was so bright; we had to cover our eyes. As the light vanished, Earth Dragon emerged.  
It was a mole.  
\- “That's not a dragon. It's just a mole,” said Juniper, disappointed.  
\- “Hey, I never said it`s a dragon. His name is Earth Dragon and I`ll have you know it is not just a mole. It is an octopus nosed mole. Their olfactory sense is by far the best in the entire animal kingdom,” Etri stated.  
\- “Sooo, your manticore`s name is Black King and your mole`s name is Earth Dragon?” asked Amran, a bit confused.  
\- “Yup, exactly.”  
\- “Okay, just making sure.”  
\- “How many summons do you have anyway?” I asked to Etri.  
\- “Hmm, I have thousands of summons,” Etri bragged.  
\- “Ahem” Brock exclaimed.  
\- “Okay, I exaggerated a bit. Let's say hundreds.”  
\- “AHEM” Brock exclaimed louder.  
\- “Oh, come on. Did you forget the bees? I am sure there are hundreds in that hive.”  
\- “No, I did not forget. They are counted as one, you idiot. He has just four, brother,” said Brock. “And he put the bees under his spell just before we got here.”  
\- “Ah, okay. No need to fight. I just asked for the sake of it,” I said. “So, what's with this little guy's nose? Why did you summon it?” I asked.  
\- “He will lead us to the bandits` fort. He can track anything by their smell,” Etri said. “Find them Earth Dragon,” he commanded the mole.  
Octopus nosed mole had a nose that actually looked like an octopus. It had eight tendrils and they were all moving separately. Although he was so ugly, he looked like he could do the job. He turned around and sniffed. He moved a bit with his tiny limbs and sniffed again. He caught the scent and pointed out their direction with his tendrils. Etri picked him up and put him on his shoulder as we started to run to close the gap between us and the bandits.  
It had only been one hour since we started running; I caught a glimpse of an arrow launching towards me. While I dodged it in the nick of time, we were suddenly surrounded by a dozen of bandits. They must have concealed their aura, since neither Kurzon nor I was able to detect any living being in the vicinity. Most of them seemed to be ordinary weapon wielders. As I observed the attackers, however, I noticed a half-naked muscular mage pointing his palms at Brock. I quickly got between the man and Brock in order to deflect any projectiles the man might have launched; instead, I found myself teleported into a dark room without my jacket, shirt, backpack and weapons. I thought this might be an illusion so I closed my eyes and visualize the forest I was in… It did not work. I started observing my surroundings. The room, I was in, was oddly similar to a fighting arena and I was standing in the middle of it. There was no spectator seats, no ceiling, and no sky; just a fighting pit in the middle of an empty, pitch-black space. And, there was the muscular man, clearly annoyed. He had reddish, spiky hair and broad shoulders. He was tall and athletic. He was only wearing a pair of leather pants.  
\- “Where the hell did you come from? I wanted to fight with that axe-wielding dwarf. You swordsmen suck at fist fighting. I will make quick work of you and go after the dwarf next,” he said.  
\- “What is this place? And speaking of swords, where is mine?” I asked.  
\- “Yes, yes. I will give you the rules, don`t worry. I am a sportsman after all. This place is an alternate world created by my magic. I am the creator of this universe, so my rules apply here. No magic. No aura manipulation. No armor. No weapons. Two men go in, one man comes out. The only way for you to get back to the real world is to kill your opponent. The same rules apply to me as well. Enough talk, let`s begin,” he said and charged at me with a surprising speed.  
I did not have time to react. He applied a bear hug on me from the front. He probably could have broken my spine, if it were not for my mutant ability. The hunter became the hunted. I released my stored lightning and shocked him with all I had. This was going to be over in seconds but I underestimated my opponent. While he screamed in pain, he managed to head butt me in right in the face and break my nose. The impact made me cancel my lightning and we got separated; both of us fell on our knees.  
\- “What the f.ck? You cannot do magic here. That was not magic. How the hell did you electrocute me?” he asked.  
\- “I am a sportsman too. Since you were kind enough to explain the rules, I will tell you. It is part of my body. I can release electricity like an electric eel.” I said.  
\- “So you are a mutant like him, eh? Good! It looks like I finally found my match. I used to be a pugilist in the fish market in Thilias. Countless fighters would come to fight me from all parts of Varathia, but that damned King Golmyck closed the fighting pits. What was I supposed to do? Be a bouncer in a pillow house… Not for me. So I joined the True Children of Varathia in the hope of finding worthy opponents, to bring meaning to my life. Our leader discovered I have magic powers and thought me this ritual so I can fight uninterrupted without any pesky magic or hidden weapons around. Everyone is equal here,” he said with an excited voice.  
\- “Stop saying we are equal as if that`s a good thing. Equality and fairness are not the same things. You are trapping people here and forcing them to make a fistfight with a professional pit fighter like you. It is not fair,” I said while stretching my shoulders.  
\- “Well, life isn’t fair either. At least, I give people a chance to defend themselves, and I always pick the strongest guy in the group to fight. I fought a giant in human form once; it was one hell of a fight. He was strong but his technique was sloppy. You seem to be fast but not very strong. I am counting on your lightning ability to make this fight fun. Don`t disappoint me after getting me hyped up,” he said, cracking his neck by bending backwards with a loud popping sound.  
\- “Aren`t you concerned about my ability?”  
\- “No, of course not. My skin is callous and thick. I will be fine. I hope you haven`t used all of it up,”  
\- “Ooo, do not worry. There is plenty more where that came from” I said and attempted to jab his ribs using my index and middle finger, extending my reach.  
He was very fast on his feet. He dodged my attack with a quick side step and he punched me with a right hook and stepped back. Although he got electrocuted when he made contact, it did not affect him much. The amount of electric current flowed to his body was minimal as a result of the speed of his punches. Whenever I attacked him, he dodged, countered with one punch and stepped back without risking getting too close. He was moving effortlessly without wasting a single move thanks to his superior motor skills and his muscle memory, gained through many years of fighting and training. If it weren`t for my animalistic reflexes and stamina, the fight would have been over a long time ago. We traded punches and kicks, jabs and hooks. While I got a bloodied nose and a swollen eye, he did not have any visible damage; but I knew he was getting damaged internally with every contact thanks to my electric currents; thus getting slower gradually. He feinted a right hook, got past my defense and punched me in the liver. Unexpectedly, my liver released a massive amount of electricity as a result of the impact. It even made me lose control of the currents and shock myself along with the pugilist. Both of us fell to the floor with pain.  
\- “Hahahaha. Looks like I hit the lightning sack, eh? You store them in your liver?” he asked rather amused and jolly in a weird way.  
\- “Yeah, it appears that way,” I said, still dazed due to the shock. I had not shocked myself for years. I had forgotten how painful it was. I briefly remembered my teenage years when I was still learning how to use my mutant abilities.  
\- “Hahahaha. You did not know,” the pugilist said, he was laughing his ass off.  
\- “Excuse me if I did not cut myself up and not looked inside. Is that funny? Are you not aware that you have just fried your left arm?”  
\- “That`s hilarious,” he said and continued laughing. “Nah, that will be fine… I like fighting with a handicap anyways,” he said after seeing he could not move his left arm. “Once, I fought a bear with my hands tied together and there was this other time I had terrible diarrhea; I could barely keep it in during the fight,” he said with his jolly tone and kept laughing.  
\- “Look, I do not know how you guys did it in Thilias but normally people do not talk this much in a fight.”  
\- “Ahahahaha, you are right swordsman. But forgive me; I talk too much when I am in a good mood. I am so happy that you came here instead of that dwarf. I haven`t had this much fun since my training years,” he said and got sad and serious suddenly. “I am sad we won`t be able to fight again. This is a one-time deal. Well, let`s make the most of it,” he said and attacked.  
He said he liked to fight with a handicap but not being able to use his left arm gave him a considerable disadvantage, furthermore, the last shock probably damaged his heart too. His footwork was slow and he could not punch as strong. I gained upper hand after a while. As I applied my lightning with every consecutive jab, he got sluggish and unable to keep up his defenses. When I caught him on the wrong foot, I grabbed his right arm and pushed his chest while applying my lightning. He fell on his back with a big thump.  
\- “Are you dead yet?” I asked.  
\- “Don`t make me laugh swordsman… it hurts. You need a lot more than that to send me off,” he said, smiling.  
\- “You know… It does not have to be this way. Undo the spell and I will let you go if you promise you won`t attack us,” I said. It seemed pointless and wrong to kill a man who was already beaten. He did not pose a threat to me anymore.  
\- “Unfortunately, I cannot do that swordsman. When I said that the only way to get back to the real world is to kill your opponent, I was not lying. I… never learned how to undo the spell. I… only wanted to find an opponent who could finally beat me; I… decided to die when I was beaten. Do not worry about me. I… am happy. I… always wanted to die fighting instead of being pulverized by a spell, struck by a stray arrow or on my sickbed. At least, I am dying doing what I love,” he said. He spent a brief moment moving his lips conspicuously and uttering some words silently. “Do it. I am ready,” he said.  
I placed my hands next to the left side of his rib cage and on top of his sternum.  
\- “Hold on!” he exclaimed. “What… is your name?” he asked.  
\- “Rai. It is Rai.”  
\- “My name is Tora… it was… a pleasure to meet you, Rai. I… will be waiting for you on the other side for the second round,” he said and passed out, still smiling.  
As the electric currents passed through his body and killed him, this alternate world slowly faded away.


	14. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in the midst of the mist

CHAPTER 14  
When I got back to the real world, I suddenly collapsed on my knees due to the fatigue and damage I endured during the fight with Tora. He was lying on the ground lifeless. It seemed only Kurzon found out what happened and quickly came to my defense. The remaining bandits were only ordinary warriors and a low level fire mage. While Amran took care of enemy fire mage easily, Kurzon and others attacked enemy warriors. We quickly got the situation under control and subdued the bandits.  
\- “Rai, what happened to you? You look like you got hit by a rampaging trampler,” Amran said.  
\- “Yeah, you could say that,” I said.  
\- “I believe he fought that red headed guy inside of his own mind,” Kurzon said.  
\- “Inside of his own mind?” asked Juniper. “I do not get it.”  
\- “It is a ritualistic spell that pulls the victim`s consciousness to an alternate world with pre-set rules. The rules are made to give the caster an advantage over their enemies. It is very fortunate that Rai got out of there alive,” explained Kurzon. “What was the ritual about?  
\- “It was a fighting pit. We fought with our fists with no magic. I could not have survived if it were not for my mutant abilities,” I said.  
\- “The results would have been catastrophic for the rest of us,” said Kurzon.  
\- “Oo, man. We dodged a bullet there,” said Etri after examining Tora.  
\- “Not me. I could have taken that guy. I wish he picked me,” said Brock, pounding his fist into his palm.  
After Kurzon healed my wounds, we continued following Earth Dragon`s nose towards the bandits’ hideout. Luckily, there was no ambush squads waiting for us, or maybe, we managed to avoid them. At nightfall, we decided to set up our camp, but did not light a fire. After securing the camp ground, we all sat down and ate cold, dried mammoth meat and Amran’s biscuits which he brought from his hometown. We asked Kurzon not to conjure any food in order to preserve his magical energy in case we were ambushed again. The moments we spent on the campgrounds were the best part of our journey. Thanks to these moments, we could unwind and chat. Brock was trying to identify the new magical materials he had. Juniper was studying the plans and blueprints she got from Azarius and taking notes. At some point, she asked me to help her to craft some sort of new grenade. Kurzon and Etri were arguing about the best way to kill a red eyed mammoth. This time, Amran was also a part of the argument.  
\- “You have to attack the creature`s nostrils,” Kurzon said. “That's the only exposed soft tissue on them.”  
\- “Okay, tell me. How are you planning to get past that huge trunk?” Etri asked. “That thing can crush anything in seconds. You have to attack its eyes and stay clear from its trunk.”  
\- “Every creature has superior reflexes when it comes to protecting their eyes. Going for the eyes would never work,” Kurzon said.  
\- “Hey, Amran! What is your opinion? Whose idea is better?” Etri asked to Amran.  
\- “I would burn the whole thing,” Amran said.  
\- “What? No! Its fur is magic resistant. You cannot burn it,” Etri opposed to Amran`s idea.  
\- “Well, you never know until you try and I am a fire mage after all, I burn things.”  
\- “Yeah, you try that and let me know how it worked out for you buddy,” Etri said.  
My friends decided to give me a rest from the watch keeping duty so I could get a full night's sleep and recuperate from the beating I got during my fight. We woke up with the first light of dawn and proceeded in the direction Earth Dragon`s nose pointed. Before noon, we reached the end of the forest. Mist Valley was right in front of us. Just like its name suggests, the valley was completely engulfed in fog and it was vast. There were no visible gorges or paths we could follow. We could only see the edge of the cliff in front of us and the peak of hills and big rocks that was randomly spread across the valley. 

\- “Is there a map or something?” Etri asked.  
\- “No. Maps won’t help you here, not unless you can see your surroundings. When we enter the valley, we won't even be able to see the sky. The compass and direction finding magic won’t work as well. It is about the mist. It is not natural,” Kurzon said.  
\- “How do the bandits navigate here then?” asked Juniper.  
\- “Maybe they have an air elementalist who can disperse the mist,” Amran said.  
\- “It would not work either. The mist always comes back right away,” said Kurzon.  
\- “Can we fly up and locate the fort?” asked Etri.  
\- “As far as I know, the fort is covered in mist too. We could not see it from the sky.”  
\- “Our only option is to follow our little fella’s nose then,” I said. “We should not waste time admiring the scene. Let's go.”  
\- “We will need this so we do not lose each other in that thick mist,” said Brock and pulled an enchanted rope from his bag.  
We all tied the rope around our chests and assumed single-file formation, leaving ten feet of space between each other. While Kurzon took the lead, Etri and his mole followed second to give directions to the wolf. Juniper came third, Brock was fourth, Amran was fifth and I was the last one to enter the mist.   
As we proceeded into the depths of the valley, the mist got thicker. I could barely see where I put my foot, let alone Amran. We walked on rocky paths uphill and downhill, always alternating without exactly knowing where we were for hours. A couple hours in the afternoon, the mist cleared up a bit.

\- “Hey, Etri. Are you still sure where we are going?” I asked.  
\- “Yeah. Due to the thick mist, Earth Dragon lost the scent a couple times but he found it again. It is a hit-and-miss. Since the mist is thinner now, we should have no trouble locating the fort,” Etri said.  
Kurzon navigated us with Etri`s directions to the best of his ability. After a long while walking uphill, we came to a stop. The sunlight was waning and it was getting even darker. A gentle breeze started and brought a thicker mist upon us. Our clothes got wet due to the moisture of the mist. 

\- “At this rate, we won’t be able to see anything in a couple hours. Even breathing is hard. How long do we have, Etri?” asked Brock to his brother.  
\- “We are close. The scent was strong but he lost it again because of this damned mist. He cannot smell anything now. We have to wait out the mist,” Etri said.  
\- “We should better wait here instead of wasting our energy,” said Kurzon.  
\- “Umm, Kurzon, does this mist cause hallucinations?” asked Amran.  
\- “Not that I am aware of. Why did you ask?”  
\- “I am sensing heat energy coming from that direction,” Amran said.  
\- “Hmm. Is it possible? Maybe you are sensing the open flames in the fort,” Kurzon said.  
\- “Kurzon, you said this mist is unnatural, right. So it must be magical,” I said.  
\- “I believe so. What do you have in mind?”  
\- “Amran, can you point me in the direction of the flames? I will slip into the shadow realm, if the mist is really caused by magic, it should not exist in the shadow realm. I should be able to see clearly,” I said.  
After Amran pointed the direction, I untied my rope and slipped into the shadow realm. I cannot believe why I did not think of it before, the majority of the mist was indeed magical. The valley was still full of natural fog but it was not thick enough to block my vision. As I observed the direction Amran told me, I noticed a drum tower. It was so well hidden, if it weren’t for Amran`s heat sensing ability, I could never have noticed. The fort was completely carved inside one of the cliffs and there was a huge rift between us. I entered the material world and informed my friends. 

\- “We should get close and try to scout the fort. We cannot attack without a plan first,” said Kurzon.  
\- “I have a scroll that gives me far-sight briefly. I can use it to scout the fort,” I said.  
\- “Very well. We will settle down here, scout and devise a plan,” said Kurzon.

I activated my far-sight scroll. As my vision whisked away, I diverted my gaze upon the fort. My vision approached the fort with great speed, I could see everything clearly. There were proximity and motion sensors in almost every direction with only one blind spot. I counted at least twenty men wielding some sort of magitech blasters behind the loop-holes and on top of the drum tower. There was a drawbridge at the side of the fort and that appeared to be only access to the fort. I looked inside the fort and scanned the corridors and halls, trying to locate stolen items and assess the enemy's strength. The scroll`s energy depleted before I could finish exploring the whole fort. The intel I gathered so far would have to do. I found my friends looking at me with inquisitive eyes.

\- “Okay, everyone. Here is the plan.”


	15. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> our group is storming the bandits' fort.

CHAPTER 15  
_ RAI_  
It had been two hours since Black King carried me over the rift, on top of the same cliff that harbored the fort and dropped me to a location far enough not to alert the guards but close enough so I can reach there climbing. After this point, I had to climb down and traverse laterally towards the fort. Furthermore, I had to this while I was in the shadow realm so I would not trip the alarms as I got closer. All that flagging and side pulls, while trying to cling to the holes on the cliff, really started to wear me down; and having to hold my breath was not helping at all. As my breath ran out, I sliced an opening to the material world with my sword and used a hollow bamboo stick to inhale fresh air before the portal closed.  
Finally I reached to my first stop. I was on top of the drum tower`s roof. I opened a small opening and dropped the fire bomb Juniper gave me on top of the roof. The bomb was on a timer and it was set to explode in twenty minutes after activation, which gave me less than that to traverse over the drawbridge, pass through the small hole between the bridge`s railings and find a way to lower it so my friends could get in. I took another deep breath and continued sideways towards the bridge. It took me slightly less than twenty minutes according to my hourglass to get on top of the bridge. I opened another portal to the material world and jumped down. As I landed on top of the drawbridge`s upper end, I threw a sonic bomb to the abyss to signal my friends. I entered the fort through the hole between the bridge`s railings. I used railings` posts as a ladder to quickly descend to the entrance. When I landed on the entrance level, I encountered four bandits. All of them had magitech blasters on them and I found myself at the wrong end of the blasters. The pulley system that operates the drawbridge was at the further end of the entrance. I deflected four purple magic projectiles from the blasters and made my way to the pulley system. Luckily, the blasters were not advanced enough to fire rapidly, so it gave me a chance to slip into the shadow realm without getting any suppressing fire. As soon as I got out of the shadow realm, I cut the rope that held the bridge. The drawbridge started to open, as the balance weight slowly ascended. Due to their failure to protect the bridge, the bandits were overcome with the anger and they attacked me with a broken formation which was a mistake. I killed the bandits one after another and proceeded to the atrium. Although this fort did not get a lot of sunshine, the atrium was unexpectedly lush with various trees and colorful flowers. It was definitely a change of view in this grey and brown valley. Half way through the atrium, I was interrupted by a couple of glaives which were thrown at my feet. A mage descended on the paved walkway in an unnaturally slow motion as if defying gravity. He wore a black woolen cape that covers his entire body and his face was hidden behind a demonic mask.  
\- “I do not know how you found us and got in here but this is as far as you go,” he whispered, his voice echoed through the walls of the atrium, sending chills down my spine.  
He conjured two glaives above his shoulders and hurled them to me with great speed. I deflected one of them and dodged the other. I sliced open a portal and slipped into the shadow realm. I got behind the mage while he whirled his glaives randomly in hopes of hitting me. I re-opened the portal and thrust my sword behind his back, aiming his heart, suddenly two glaives materialized; while one of them parried my sword, other one slashed my left shoulder with impeccable precision as if he had an eye at the back of his head.  
\- “Tell me. Did you kill Tora like this? Did you stab him behind his back like a coward?” he said and conjured twelve glaives around his shoulders like metal wings. “I will cut off your hands and kill you with your own sword.” He jumped and glided backwards swiftly.  
\- “You talk too much, come and try,” I said and diverted my aura flow to increase my heart beat and electrified myself to give a boost to my reaction speed.  
As the mage pointed his glaives at me and took an offensive stance, we heard the voice of a man.  
\- “That's enough, Oni. I will take care of him. There are other intruders on the way. You go and deal with them,” the man said with a soft but commanding voice. He was oozing with confidence, charisma and magical energy. He had dark skin and dark long hairs. He was at average height but very well built for a mage. He had very big eyes and instead of having circular pupils like humans, the black parts in the centers of his eyes were vertical which were encircled by yellowish eye walls.  
\- “Yes, Master, I will see to it,” Oni said, reluctantly but respectfully.  
\- “Who are you?” I said keeping my sword in front of me in a defensive position.  
\- “Let's go to somewhere we can speak in private, shall we?” he said and teleported us out of the fort with a snap of his fingers.

_Amran & Etri_  
\- “For how long have we been waiting here?” Amran asked Etri.  
\- “It has been more than two hours. We should get the signal soon,” Etri said.  
\- “I do not know, man. We should not have sent him alone. What if he falls or traps himself in that weird dimension. We wouldn’t even know what happened to him,” Amran said, clearly worried.  
\- “He wanted to go alone. If any of us tagged along, we would just hinder his movement. Do not worry about him, he… knows what he is doing,” Etri said but he was also getting agitated with every passing moment. “Just watch out for the signal, will you?”  
\- “Are you sure you dropped him close enough to the fort?” Amran asked.  
\- “I dropped him on the spot where he told me to.”  
\- “He said we would get the signal in two hours. Maybe the bomb did not explode. Should we attack anyways?” Amran asked.  
\- “Attack where? Without the flame signal, we do not know where to go in this damned mist,” Etri said.  
\- “But what if…” Amran stopped in the middle of his sentence and started observing the mist.  
\- “What? What happened? Do you sense something?” Etri asked impatiently.  
\- “The fire bomb went off, I sense the flames,” Amran shouted in triumph.  
\- “Haha. I told you not to worry, didn’t I? That son of a hammer did it. Which direction? Show me,” Etri said.  
Black King charged with great speed while carrying Amran and Etri on his back. As they got closer to the fort, they saw the drum tower covered in flames. Black King slammed on top of the tower`s roof and ripped it off with its claws. Etri and Amran jumped down swiftly and took down two of the guards who were still trying to understand what the hell just went down. Black King killed the remaining guard by digging its tail into the poor guy's chest. Etri made his way to the manhole cover which opened to the stairs but he realized that it was locked.  
\- “Can you blast this thing off?” he asked Amran.  
\- “Let me try,” said Amran, but his flames vanished just before they hit the manhole cover. “It is enchanted against fire,” Amran said angrily.  
\- “Well then let me try,” Etri said and summoned an ethereal hammer, but this time, it was a two handed hammer with a ridiculously big head. “Hold on to something,” Etri said and slammed his hammer with brute force to the stone floor, behind the manhole cover; he shook the tower. He slammed second time; he cracked the floor. He slammed third time; he broke the floor and opened a gateway to the stairs.  
\- “Who says mages need doors, right?” Amran said.  
Etri unsummoned his manticore and the duo descended the stairs as fast as they could. As soon as they reached the bottom of the tower, they faced a barrage of magic projectiles and they took cover behind the walls. There were two parallel corridors between them and the fort and both of them were heavily guarded and barricaded by bandits.  
\- “I am taking the one on the left,” Amran said and darted towards the barricade without waiting for Etri. “Come on slowpoke, see you at the end.”  
\- “I`ll take the right, then,” Etri said and entered the corridor. “Don’t keep me waiting.”  
Amran sent a volley of fire bolts to shoot enemy`s magic projectiles in midair and he started pounding the floor with his flaming fists. With every punch, he created a torrent of liquid flames resembling big waves. In mere seconds, the whole corridor turned into a sea of fire which engulfed and incinerated everything.  
When Etri entered the corridor, he jumped and bent his legs. He landed on his knees and toes and started spinning rapidly like a spinning top. He summoned multiple hammers and threw them at the barricade. By gaining extra kinetic energy, the hammers followed a direct path to the barricade without spinning. The hammers pierced through the barricade as if it was made of straw, destroying everything in their path. When he looked outside from the arrow slits, he saw the most unusual sight that worried him but also amused.  
Etri and Amran came out of the corridors at the same time and proceeded towards the fort`s great hall without facing any further resistance.

_Brock, Juniper & Kurzon_  
“Drink this Brock,” said Juniper and handed a bottle of blue gooey substance which she fished out of her bag.  
“What is that,” asked Brock and opened the bottle`s cap. “It smells weird.”  
“It is my brother's recipe. He was an enchanter like you. It boosts an enchanter`s magical energy temporarily. You will need it considering what lies ahead of us,” said Juniper. “It is the slime of a bioluminescent snail from the desert of southern continent.”  
Brock looked closely into the bottle for a second and chugged the potion while holding his nose. He gave the bottle back to Juniper with a sour face. “Thank you,” he said and asked “Should we get a little closer?” looking at the direction where the fort is supposed to be.  
“No, this is close enough. If we approach further, we may trigger the alarms. There is almost a mile between us,” said Kurzon while listening carefully to his surroundings. “Can you run a mile in four minutes? We need to join Rai as soon as possible. When he lowers the bridge, all hell will be set loose on him,” said Kurzon a bit worried.  
“Yes. Not a problem for me. Dwarves are good sprinters, not so good in the long range though.”  
“How about you Juniper?” asked Kurzon.  
“Umm… I… do not think I can run as fast as you two with my short legs. Maybe leave me here, or I can follow you from behind,” said Juniper, feeling ashamed.  
“Leaving you behind is not a good idea; we can afford to run a bit slower. I think,” said Brock.  
“We can neither leave you behind, nor slow down,” said the Wolf, weighing his options. “You can ride me,” he finally said after a brief pause.  
“I am sorry, what?” asked Juniper. She was not sure if she heard right  
“You heard me. Get on my back and hold on to my mane,” said Kurzon. “You will ride on my back.”  
“Okay,” Juniper said while trying to hide her excitement.  
“Now that's something you do not see every day, a dwarf and a wolf riding gnome storming into a fort,” said Brock. “My idiot brother is gonna miss one hell of a scene.”  
They waited in the mist for more than two hours for a sound signal which might have never come. As the sun set and it got darker every moment, their patience wore thinner.  
“I hope everything is alright, I am worried about Rai,” said Juniper.  
“Do not worry, he will do it. We will hear the signal shortly, you will see,” said Brock hesitantly, trying to make himself believe everything will be alright.  
“Juniper, doubting him at this moment will help no one,” said Kurzon. “He will do his job and we should be ready to do ours. Just be ready.” The moment Kurzon finished his sentence, a loud thunder echoed throughout the valley and the trio looked at each other in relief.  
“This is the sound of my bomb, this is the signal,” Juniper shouted in joy.  
“Hurry, get on my back. Brock, take the lead. We will be right behind,” commanded Kurzon.  
“Haha, I never doubted that son of an axe could do the job,” said Brock, charging towards the bridge while he raised his shield. “Should I engage the shield spell now?”  
“Not yet. I will tell you when it is time,” said Kurzon, running behind Brock while Juniper was holding tight on his back.  
And, they ran as fast as they could without hesitation, trusting their comrade would lower the bridge in time.  
“Incoming. Engage the shield Brock, now,” the Wolf shouted.  
Brock casted his shield spell and created a huge semi transparent phalanx shield as an extension of his own shield. A second later, multiple magical attacks and projectiles from ranged weapons rained down on them like hell fire. Fire balls hit the shield and exploded against the surface. Arrows flew and stuck to the ground. Magical bullets whizzed and snapped all around.  
Sprinting was hard on Brock`s body. Maintaining the shield spell was harder than he thought even with Juniper`s potion. However he was determined to keep the shield raised until they passed the bridge even if it was the last thing he was going to do. He blocked out the sound and explosion as they were just a distraction. He needed to focus on his breathing and shield. After a while, he vaguely saw a pair of posts right in front of him. That's it. We made it. I can now cancel the shield, nothing will happen now. I'm sure of it, he thought and began lowering his shield.  
“FOCUS, BROCK. FOCUS. THERE IS THE BRIDGE, ONLY TWO HUNDRED YARDS LEFT,” yelled Kurzon.  
Brock came to his senses as if he woke up from a puzzling dream. He noticed that they were still under heavy fire. He adjusted the angle of his phalanx shield and pressed onward. When he reached the entrance, he saw a couple of dead bodies. There were indistinct voices and stomps coming from the fort. While Brock leaned on the wall in an attempt to catch his breath and rest, Kurzon dashed towards the other door, leaving Juniper behind with Brock.  
“Thanks Brock, leave the rest to me,” said Kurzon and attacked the guards who were trying to set up an ambush in the atrium. He needed to end this fight quickly in order to catch up with Rai. He unleashed a frost nova and hit the guards in the balconies with his freezing beam. Although he casted his strongest spells, there were just too many guards for him to handle alone. He got surrounded by the remaining guards. While Kurzon was thinking a way out, half of the guards were blasted away with stone pillars erupted from the ground and the other half were hit by a lightning attack and got paralyzed.  
“We got your back Kurzon,” said Brock apparently feeling good enough to fight.  
“How do you like my new arc grenade? I crafted them using Rai`s electricity,” said Juniper.  
“Well, it was time you guys joined the fight. Though, I do not see Rai anywhere. He must be in the great hall. Let's go,” said Kurzon.  
The trio charged towards the great hall without any further resistance. It was Brock who reached the doors of the hall and opened them first; he saw his younger brother and Amran fighting a terrible foe. They joined the fray without hesitation.


	16. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a phantom from childhood

CHAPTER 16  
I found myself teleported to the border of the mist valley and the forest which we came from. The guy who brought us here was standing in a rather relaxed stance next to a cliff and gazing at the stars.  
“Who am I? Did you forget about your blood brother?” the man said.  
“Blood brother?” I mumbled, trying to give a meaning to the man`s words and behavior.  
“Tell me. Do you still look at the stars and dream about rebuilding your city? Is that why you returned or do you want to find the Magium like others? Have you ever considered looking for me?” the man asked.  
“No, he… died. I saw,” I said indistinctly, still thinking about his first comment.  
The man put his thumb on his wrist and checked his pulse for a while. “Nope, it is two hundred and twenty. Still alive. A bit more than usual, I guess I got excited to see my brother, huh,” the man said.  
“Thy-ra. Is that you?” I asked suspiciously.  
“One and only, brother,” Thy-ra said happily. “So, are you going to lower your sword? It is a bit offensive.”  
I sheathed my sword but kept my hand on the hilt casually. I was still confused to see my childhood friend whom I thought was dead. He was either telling the truth or very good at controlling his aura. “But, how? They… killed you when we attempted to escape.”  
“What you saw was an illusion. It is a long story…” he was saying but I interrupted him. “My blood brother was not mage,” I stated, thinking that I caught his lie.  
“That's right, I wasn’t. After our failed escape, they caught me and put me with other kids,” he said with a cold tone.  
“Did they turn you into an artificial mage?” I asked.  
“Yes, brother, as you can see.”   
“Did they…” I could not bring myself to finish that question.  
“Yes, brother. I was beaten, tortured, experimented on again and again, twice as brutal, after I get caught. They enjoyed it too. They made sure I would not survive the process but I did and I became a mage.”  
“Your collar. Did they put it on you? Were you their bodyguard?”  
“Yes, for a while. But I found a way to disable it, and when I did that, I killed every single one of them fuckers whom I was supposed to protect,” Thy-ra said and laughed amusingly. “You should have seen their faces brother; one of them kept pressing the collar`s remote control in order to make my head blow off while I slowly killed all that fucking Lessathis.”  
“No? Is it not funny?” Thy-ra asked when he saw me not laughing with him. “I still wear it lest I forget.”  
“I am sure they deserved it. What are you doing, here, with the bandits?” I asked, afraid of the answer he might give.  
“I am their leader, brother. I found the True Children of Varathia.”  
“You did what?” I asked rather disappointed. “You created an organization that terrorizes your own people. You always wanted to change things on this island for the good. Is this how you will accomplish that? The Thy-ra I know would never harm Varathians.”  
“FUCK VARATHIANS,” Thy-ra said angrily. “Where were they when we were abducted and tortured by the Lessathi? Why did the Kings never do anything to save us? They all knew what that fucking orphanage was. The Thy-ra you knew was murdered in that orphanage, just like hundreds of other kids.” He said and continued calmly. “I decided to take the matter on my own hands now, and change Varathia for the better.”  
“How are you planning on doing that?” I asked.  
“First, we will kill all kings, nobles and clan leaders in Varathia,” he said.  
“And Tyrath, the golden fox and the creator will just watch you do all that peacefully?” I interrupted him.  
“Oh, no. They will be eliminated as well.”  
“You are gonna kill Tyrath? That`s a bit beyond your scope.”  
“He is a huge, red target in the sky. Anything can be killed when shot with a powerful enough weapon, brother,” Thy-ra explained.  
“Is that why you are stealing and collecting magical items, to make a weapon?” I asked.  
“Yeah, you could say that.”  
“What about the fox? I heard she has god-like powers.”  
“She is powerful but only if she is inside of sacred forests. That's why she never comes out. When we burn all sacred forests simultaneously, she will be as weak as an apprentice air elementalist. My spies are already working on locating all sacred forests,” he said rather sure of himself.  
“You have put a lot of thought into this. I still do not think ‘the Creator’ will let you destroy his island,” I stated.  
“Oh, believe me brother, he does not care. Also, we have an agreement. He promised not to interfere and to leave the island if I can succeed. In return, I will give up my life when I achieve my dream, a free Varathia. That`s a price I am willing to pay.”  
“Are you crazy? What do you think you will achieve when you kill all of them?” I asked.  
“Chaos! And after chaos, a new order will take its place; a better one where everybody will be equal.”  
“At what cost? Countless people will die in the process and the chaos only favors the strong. The weak will continue to suffer just like today.”  
“I admit that sacrifices must be made and no system is perfect, unfortunately. That's what I wanted to speak with you. I won't be around to show people the correct way due to my agreement with the Creator, but you can take my place, brother. Join me, help me free this island from its shackles, and then, shape it as you wish,” Thy-ra said enthusiastically.  
Thy-ra had always been a dreamer but I could now see that all that torture and suffering twisted his dreams into nightmares. I had made my peace thinking that he was dead. But now, seeing his current condition made me resent the Lessathi who kidnapped us even more. They wanted to create monsters, and now, they ended up with one, maybe more than one.   
“So, will you join me?” Thy-ra asked.  
“No, I will not join you. And, I cannot allow you to do this as well,” I said. “Hear me out, disband your army and give up this mad plan of yours; it is not too late to do the right thing. We can find a better way,” I was saying but he interrupted me.  
“Better way to prevent kidnappings, to stop noble`s cruelty, to fix income inequality and food shortage. Varathia is on the brink of a total war. I spent years to build my army with only one purpose, total annihilation of our oppressors,” he said with a serious tone.  
“We… could find a way to…” I said but lost the train of my thoughts and found myself pondering on what happened to my home city. Maybe if it weren’t for the King and the Queen, Olmnar wouldn’t be in ruins. ‘Is this really the only way to fix Varathia,’ I doubted myself.  
“I am asking again, brother. Think carefully. Will you join me?” Thy-ra said.  
“No…I won’t.”  
“I thought you would be happy to see me and be eager to join me. Just like the old days, two of us against the world. I guess I was wrong, I see you have already forgotten our suffering and gone soft. I am sorry that our reunion day will also be your departure day,” he said and pulled his long sword.  
“Thy-ra! You are not thinking straight. You don’t wanna do this,” I exclaimed.  
“That’s right. I don’t wanna do this but it will be done regardless,” he said and lunged towards me.  
I parried his sword with mine and counter-attacked, but to my surprise, Thy-ra effortlessly blocked my attack. Thy-ra`s mutation was based on a cat. His reflexes were off the charts. Thanks to his cat eyes, he was able to see clearly in this dim, moonless night, unlike me. He relentlessly attacked me without giving me any breather. After some swordplay, which I had to stay on the defense, it was made clear to me that I had no chance of beating him in a sword duel. I rolled backwards and sliced a portal into shadow realm. I was about to enter the portal, a powerful telekinetic blast hit me from the side and knocked me over.  
“Where do you think you are going, brother? After watching your fight with Oni, even a monkey could figure out that trick of yours.”  
He was not going to let me vanish into the shadows so I pulled my other trick, my yo-yo made out of elven steel. I swung the wired weapon rapidly over my head and attacked with a wide swing. Although he had no problem deflecting the bearings, the moment his sword made contact, he got electrocuted which led him to drop his sword from his hand.  
“By the Gods, you are still playing with toys,” he said while shaking off his sword hand. “I forgot your mutation came from an electric eel. Let me warn you brother, cats eat fish.”  
“Be careful. Do not choke on the bones, brother.” This time, I lunged towards him in order to take him down while he was unarmed. However, he created a bubble shield with a hand gesture around him to protect himself and pushed me away with another powerful telekinetic blast while I was blocked by the invisible walls of his shield. To my further dismay, he recalled his sword with his telekinesis magic. As I expected him to attack, instead, he kneeled and placed his palm against the ground. Purple runic letters appeared and surrounded us in a big circle. When the circle completed, I felt my lightning has abandoned me. Thy-ra gave me a smirk and quickly slashed my chest with the tip of his sword. Without my reflex boost, I did not stand a chance against him and I had no choice but to escape. I faked an uppercut with my yo-yo and quickly sliced open a portal between him and myself. It was a mistake to obstruct my line of sight with him. First, I felt cold steel at my back, and afterwards, a burning sensation as he ran his sword through my chest. I had no idea when he got teleported behind me. I executed a backhand swing with my remaining strength but he easily parried my attack and disarmed me. All I could do was to watch my beloved sword fall into the pitch black abyss next to me. I had barely enough strength left to stand still, let alone fight back.  
‘Thy-ra has gotten strong,’ I thought to myself.  
“You should have joined me, brother... I will mourn for you,” Thy-ra said and kicked me to the same abyss my sword fell.  
The last thing I saw was Thy-ra`s tormented face filled with sadness and guilt. And then, there was nothing.


	17. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter, I tried to shed some light about our hero Rai's past

CHAPTER 17  
“Argh, he fucking bit my arm,” the caretaker said and tossed the child into the teleportation pad as if he was a sack of rotten potatoes.  
The other man gave him a rusted hunting knife. “If I were you, I would use it to cut my own wrists. That would be less painful,” the supervisor said with a wicked smile on his face and shut the fenced door.  
“I still do not understand why we cannot just kill them here. There will all die in misery anyways.”  
“Well, because Lady Meredith said so. Now, lock the door and I will start the teleportation,” the supervisor said. “Hey kid. Stay calm or this will hurt like hell.”  
“Or don’t, you freak!” the caretaker said and hit the metal fence with his baton. “That`s what you get for trying to escape.”  
The child knew what was happening, he was finally being sent to another continent just like all other rejects, never to be seen or heard again. The child was not calm since he had just witnessed his friend`s murder. He was not afraid to go on another continent with a knife but he was not excited to leave this cursed place as he was alone. He felt nothing but anger, mostly against himself for letting himself get caught.  
Suddenly, a blue light enveloped the child and whisked him away to another place far from the island he was born in. He opened his eyes in a thick forest and felt like he got punched in the guts. He threw up the runny mush he was given to eat for dinner. It was dusk and it was going to be dark sooner. His father`s words rushed into his mind. “When you are lost, listen and observe,” his father said, after he got lost in the market square in Olmnar. He could not remember his father`s face but he still had some good memories of his father, and some bad ones. And that's what he did. He, first, saw that rusted knife and quickly snatched it before it could vanish in a blue light. As he hugged the knife as if it was his most sacred treasure, he listened. He heard the chirping bugs and cawing crows, nothing else. However he did not know if this was a good thing or bad. He once read a book about a hero who had to survive in a forest. ‘What was the thing hero had done?’ he tried to remember. He needed to find shelter first. He walked around in the search of anything that might have offered some refuge. Sun light was already gone and he stopped paying attention to his surroundings anymore. Everything looked like a snake at night in the forest. If it was not for some moon light that illuminated his way, he would have curled up between some tree roots a long time ago.  
He focused on finding some shelter and maybe some water. Luckily, he heard the sound of rippling waters. He quickly jogged in the direction of the water. As he opened a path between the bushes, he saw the source of burbling, a small stream of water and a prowling shadow with fangs and a pair of glowing eyes, eyes that were locked onto him. The child`s heart raced, his breath became shallow and his pupils widened. As the shadow strode forward, the child unconsciously raised his rusty knife. He was face to face with a jaguar. The jaguar made a circle around the kid instinctively and lunged towards the kid. Both of them tumbled on the ground and down to the steep hill. As the kid rolled uncontrollably, he lost his grip on the knife. He could only stop by hitting a huge tree truck almost snapping his back in two. His breathe left his lunges but he somehow managed to locate the jaguar just before it attacked. The kid lifted his arms in a defensive position to protect his neck and head. The jaguar bit the kid`s arm and pulled with great strength. It dragged the kid and shook his head in order to rip the poor kid`s arm from his bloodied body. All he saw was a bright red blur charging towards the jaguar and ramming it to the ground. He saw the jaguar fleeing, and a brief second later, felt a warm light. His pain gradually diminished and his wounds healed. He stood up and noticed that the red blur was a wolf made out of flames. The fiery wolf was sitting and looking at the kid. Only then, he saw an old woman clad in a brown harrowed tunic and a pointy hat. The woman's eyes were glowing bright red.  
“Are you well?” the woman asked abruptly when she stopped the healing spell.  
“I… am hungry,” the kid replied with a dazed expression.  
The woman gestured the kid to follow her with a simple hand sign. The kid followed the woman silently while the fiery wolf led them to an old shack in the woods.  
When the old woman opened the unlocked door, the elemental wolf quickly jogged over the fireplace and sat, forming a regular fire under the big cauldron. No one could have known it was walking just a moment ago. The woman gave the boy a steaming rabbit stew and bread.  
“Where are your parents, kid? Are you lost in the woods?” the old woman asked.  
“I do not have any parents,” the kid said, sadly, and asked. “Where are we?”  
“Foghorn Forests, in the Western Continent,” she replied.  
“Are you a mage?” the kid asked after wolfing down the stew and a big loaf of bread.  
“I have been called a witch or a crone, but never a mage,” the woman said. “But I can do magic, if that's what you are asking.”  
“Can you teach me?” he asked with a serious tone.  
The woman let out a long sigh of despair. “You can sleep there,” she said and pointed a thick rug to use as a makeshift bed in the corner of the shack. “I am taking you to the village tomorrow.”  
Old woman opened her eyes with the sound of a crowing rooster at the break of dawn. Her eyes scanned the inside of the shack; however she couldn’t see the boy. ‘Maybe he left’ she thought, but she then noticed that the boy dragged his makeshift bed next to the fire place where he felt warmer and safer. She had no idea what to do, since she had never taken care of another human being, let alone a child. She decided to go to the kitchen and prepare for the day.  
The kid was woken up by the sound of ceramic ware hitting each other. He followed the voice to the kitchen and found the woman preparing breakfast.  
“Are you making breakfast?” the kid asked to make the woman be aware of his presence while gazing at the table full of cheese, sausage, honey and a hot bowl of porridge.  
“Yes,” she replied without looking at the child.  
“Can I help?”  
“No… just sit,” old woman said and put a couple of boiled eggs on the table. They started eating their breakfast.  
“What is your name?” the kid asked.  
The woman looked at the kid with inquisitive eyes and chuckled with the realization. No one had asked her name for five thousand years. “It is Kara, if you must know,” she said after a brief silence.  
“My name is Rai,” the boy said without waiting to be asked. “So, can you teach me magic?”  
“No, I cannot,” Kara said.  
“Why not?” Rai exclaimed.  
“Because, you do not have magic. Let me tell you the way you will understand; you are not born a mage. You cannot become one. That's not how it works,” Kara said with a cold tone. “Why do you want to learn magic, anyways?”  
Rai told his story to the woman who saved his life. He did not expect pity or sympathy, he simply explained what happened to his hometown, how he was kidnapped and tortured by people whom he had nothing to do. As for his reason for wanting to learn magic, he wanted to make sure no one could ever lay their fingers on any child, ‘at least not on his watch,’ he said. Kara thought his reasons were rather childish and unrealistic, but she guessed it was normal. After all, Rai was a child and Kara had no idea what children were supposed to think. She decided to indulge the kid’s wish. “The faster he learns how to take care of himself, the sooner he would leave her well alone,” she thought.  
“Look! I cannot teach you magic but I can teach you how to defend yourself against magic,” she said, for the first time she looked at Rai`s eyes when she spoke.  
“Yes,” Rai shouted in triumph with the joy of a full belly. “When do we start?”  
“Now!”  
***   
Kara taught Rai about magic and aura. At the beginning, Rai really struggled how to sense other people`s and object’s aura. When he managed to see Kara`s age and other characteristic by scanning her aura for the first time, he jumped up with happiness and hit his head to a tree branch.  
“Are you five thousand years old?” Rai asked in shock.  
“Yes. Is that too odd? Now, let`s try something new, shall we?” Kara said and she tied a piece of cloth around Rai`s head to cover his eyes. “You will stay like this until you learn to perceive your surroundings by their auras.”  
“What? I cannot do that,” Rai protested and attempted to unbind the blindfold but it wouldn’t come off.  
“I enchanted that. Until you learn your lesson, they will never come off,” she said. “Now quit whining. This is what you wanted. Remember?”  
***  
After Rai’s aura sense and aura concealment training, Kara decided to teach him something more advanced.  
“You need to protect yourself against mind affecting spells and since you cannot cast those protection spells, you have to do it the hard way,” she said.  
“What is the hard way?” Rai asked.  
“You will learn to manipulate your aura flow to imitate the effects of protection spells,” she said. “Now I will cast myself those spells one by one, and you will observe my aura fluctuations. Once you get the hang of it, you will be able to change your own aura flow by mimicking mine. It is not too hard, actually. Understood?”  
“Umm… yeah, sure,” Rai said without having a clue as to how to do that.  
***  
In years, Rai grew stronger and learnt all Kara had to offer.  
“It is time for the final lesson,” she said. “Keep your guard up, Rai.”  
“What for…” he was saying but he got hit by an invisible force.  
“Observe the battle field,” Kara said. She was not going to go easy on him.  
Rai scanned his surroundings and noticed Kara had expanded her aura and created a floating focal point that sustains an aura wall. She was using this wall to crush Rai. Rai fell on his knees with the weight of this new technique. He had no idea how to escape. “What am I supposed to do?” he asked in despair.  
“Hit the focal point,” Kara said.  
“Hit it with what? I cannot do magic.”  
“Use the coins in your pocket. Infuse your aura into them. It will make them sharper, and then throw them at the focal point. Once hit, the aura wall will disperse.”  
And Rai did that and much more. They spent six years together. When they did not train, they were out in the woods, foraging and hunting and doing other casual stuff like a mother and son would do. They cooked together, and turned once an empty shack into a home. While Kara connected with another human for the first time in her seemingly eternal life, Rai once again found a place where he could call home and a woman whom he could call mother.  
“Rai,” he heard Kara`s voice calling to him. “Rai, can you hear me?”  
“Mother…” he mumbled.  
“Rai!” This time the voice came from afar, or maybe closer than he thought. He could not tell.  
“Rai?” he heard someone calling his name. It was not his mother this time.  
“Rai, wake up!” he heard. The voice was rather soft and… familiar somehow.  
“Guys!” the voice said. “Come here, I think he is waking up.”


	18. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the group re-unites and makes their way to Kemeria.

CHAPTER 18  
My bones were aching and I was feeling like a rotten log. I opened my eyes with a screeching pain coming from my left leg. It took me a while to figure out where I was and what was happening. There I saw a beautiful, freckled face, with orange hair, looking at me with curious eyes.  
“Juniper!” I hardly managed to whisper, but it sounded more like a grunt.  
“Yes, Rai. It’s me, Juniper. Look! We are all here for you. You are safe now,” she said joyfully while crying out of happiness. The whole party was there, cheering in triumph and relief.  
“You almost kicked the bucket, man. Welcome back to the living,” said Etri.  
“You really got us scared there, brother,” Brock said.  
“I knew you would not bail on us. After all, we have a chess match to finish,” Amran added.  
“Good to see you in one piece, Rai,” said the wolf.  
My mind was in limbo for a while and had a hard time giving a meaning to what everyone said. At the end, I managed to ask what happened.  
It turned out my friends found me at the bottom of the valley next to the forest lying unconscious and at the brink of death. I had suffered from major blood loss, hypothermia and several broken bones. “You have to thank Earth Dragon. If it weren’t for him, we would not be able to find you,” said Etri. Kurzon did everything he could to heal me with his magic. He went to fetch medicine from one of his animal friends who were a healer with Amran while the dwarves and Juniper stayed back and took good care of me. When they asked me how I ended up many miles out of the fort, I told them that the leader of the bandits teleported me out of the fort. There, we fought and I lost, but I omitted the fact that their leader was my friend from the orphanage.  
“The royal jewel, did you get it?” I asked.  
“Yes, brother. It was a hard fight but we managed to push the bandits and their commander, and made our way to the treasure room. We found the jewel and our machine. They are safe and sound with us,” Brock said and fished out of the jewel from his bag to show me. It was a shiny crystal cradled into a golden frame.  
“And how did you manage to get out of there in one piece?” I asked.  
“Actually, that was the easiest part. When we barricaded ourselves in the treasure room, we noticed that there was a teleportation device in there. Brock and Juniper managed to start it, so we teleported out of there. Do not get me wrong though, we had waited for you for a long time but they were about to break the door,” Amran explained.  
“Oh, my, that was very convenient,” I said in disbelief.  
“I know, right? I wanted to leave a thank you note for the bandits but these guys did not lend me a pen,” said Etri in his regular jolly mood. “And then, I asked Earth Dragon to find you and here we are.”  
“Well, you have saved my life. I do not know how to thank you,” I said in humility.  
“Do not mention it, you silly. You would have done the same for us,” said Juniper.  
“We have bad news for you, Rai, aside from your health condition,” Kurzon said.  
“What is it?” I asked curiously.  
“We looked everywhere but we couldn’t find your sword. I am afraid that the guy you fought might have taken it,” he said.  
“No, it also fell down the cliff,” I said after gathering my thoughts. “I hid a beacon inside the pummel in case I ever lose it. It should be somewhere in the valley,” I said and I pulled a compass from my pocket. When I tried to locate my sword, the compass needle kept spinning rapidly and couldn’t find any signal.  
“I know how these locators work. Maybe it is broken due to the impact. Let me take a look,” Juniper said and took the compass. After examining the compass with her tools, she gave the real bad news.  
“I am sorry, Rai. This is not broken. It just cannot find your sword because the beacon you hid in the sword’s pummel does not exist anymore. It looks like it vanished from our plane of existence.”  
“Maybe the beacon is broken,” said Etri.  
“No, that’s not the case. The magic would have lingered even if the beacon was broken. It is simply gone,” Juniper said.  
It was, indeed, bad news for me. I had that sword for almost ten years now and losing it made me feel like I betrayed my master’s trust. With a heavy heart, I focused my attention to our task and tried to get up but a sharp pain pinned me back to the floor while I let out a harrowing cry.  
“Not so fast, Rai. Your left femur is still broken. We gave you the medicine to heal your bones but it will need one more night to do its magic,” Kurzon warned me.  
I slept through that night with nightmares of being stabbed and falling in a bottomless well. Morning came and the healing potion indeed made its magic; I was able to get up. Although every single bone and muscle were screaming in tension and resisting my impulses, it was still better than being dead.  
“We still have two days to meet the King’s deadline. If we walk in a steady pace and get lucky enough to avoid any confrontation, we can still make it,” said Kurzon.  
It was excruciatingly painful to walk for me at first but after we got out of the valley and entered the forest, I felt a bit better, mainly thanks to Kurzon’s healer friend’s medicine. We successfully avoided any traps and ambushes bandits might have laid and camped in the forest to spend the night. While we were eating our dinners, I and Kurzon detected an aura approaching our camp.  
“Someone bypassed my suggestion spell. He is coming here,” Kurzon said and warned us. Everyone suddenly got up and took a defensive stance since we were still in enemy territory.  
“Wait a minute. I recognize this aura,” I said to my teammates and he emerged from the bushes with a sleepy look on his face.  
“Hello friends,” he said without any visible gesture or emotion.  
It was the grave keeper guy. He stood before us with his pale face, dark grotesque attire and his shovel.  
“Hi,” I said, not sure what else to say at that point.  
“I was waiting for you but I kept myself busy burying the bodies you left in the forest. I hope you do not mind,” he said as if it was the perfect thing to say to a bunch of strangers you had once met.  
“Okay. Are you looking for us?” asked Etri befuddled. “How did you find us?”  
“I decided to follow you guys. You leave a trail of dead bodies wherever you go, someone has to bury them, right, and I found you thanks to my tracking spell I cast on you when we first met,” he said and pointed Brock.  
“How? I did not allow you to do something like that,” Brock said infuriated, and he let out a big sigh. “Undo the spell right now, will you?”  
“Oh, I am sorry. When you said I could do as I wished, I assumed you wouldn’t mind.”  
“Wha? Wait, What? That’s not what I meant,” Brock complained in utter shock while trying to recall his words.  
“Hahaha. That’s what you said Brock. You practically asked him to put a tracking spell on you. You cannot blame him,” Etri teased his brother.  
“Okay, guys. Let’s keep it together. What’s done is done and he is here now,” Kurzon said. “Since you have waited for us in the forest, can you tell us what is going on around? Have you seen any bandits or other threats?” he asked the grave keeper.  
“I have seen a bunch of tournament participant who collect pine cones and stuff them into their bags, but I do not believe they pose any threat.”  
“Well, at least, there are no bandits around. That’s good news for us,” said the wolf.  
“Hey, fella. I do not believe we have met. My name is Amran,” Amran introduced himself and we realized we actually had never met and dubbed him ‘grave keeper’ due to his attire.  
“Hi, friend. My name is Mezzargard, at your service.”  
Kurzon called all of us and said that it might be a good idea to let Mezzargard join us for now since we were vulnerable and hunted. “After all, there is strength in numbers,” said the wolf and we decided to accept Mezzargard to our ranks after a brief introduction. I was too tired from walking all day so I slept through all night while my friends kept guard duty. Next day, we had reached the edge of forest with no notable events. When we stepped out of the forest, a group of soldiers cut our way as if they appeared out of thin air.  
All of them wore formal attire that was similar to the Kemerian soldiers’ uniform. The man who appeared to be their leader had white hair and beard. He was clearly a battle hardened warrior and a high class mage. His shoulder pads had ornamented silver stripes that set him apart from the rest.  
“We know who you are and what you have done. Hand over the royal jewel right now,” he commanded us.


	19. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mysterious group of warriors confront our heroes and attempt to take the royal jewel from them. Amran finally gets some clues about his unknown light powers.

CHAPTER 19  
There were a total of five soldiers. The soldier, on the far left side, was evidently a fire mage as he was not even trying to hide that fact. His hands and hair was on flames. Next to him, there was a soldier with small constitution. He was completely covered in an armored suit consists of enchanted plate armor and chainmail armor, on the joints where plate armor failed protect. He had a large cape seemed to be covered in metallic feathers, and the masked helmet oddly had a feminine face. Their leader had a pair of ornamented gauntlets and an enchanted leather vest similar to other soldiers, except the armored one. On the right side, there was a rather old mage with a wooden staff and another soldier who wields a kite shield and an axe. There was no need to scan their aura to figure out that they were all expert combatants and mages; their confident stance and sheer amount of aura that hit our faces like a tsunami were enough indication.  
“No idea what you are talking about, old man,” Etri said.  
“Look! We do not have time to play games with you, we are soldiers from Kemeria. I told you I know who you are and you have the royal jewel. Please hand it over,” their leader said.  
“No! You look old man. I do not care who you are. We risked our hides for this while you took your sweet time. We will give this to the King personally and the King only,” Brock said and gestured them to move aside.  
“Ah, it looks like your intelligence is also as short as your height, if not shorter,” the fiery mage said. He was rather young and hot-headed, both figuratively and literally.  
“Mind your tongue, boy or I will remove it from your head,” the wolf said. It was very unusual to see Kurzon speak this way.  
The fire mage was not taken aback by Kurzon’s statement. On the quiet opposite, he was more excited than ever as it could clearly be seen from his wicked grin. “I would like to see you try old wolf but I have a different target in my mind,” he said while pointing Amran with his finger. “How about a wager? Your fire mage against me, winner gets the jewel.”  
“We already have it. Why would we fight this senseless battle?” Juniper asked.  
“That’s fine, Juniper. I got this. I would be more than happy to help this guy make a fool of himself,” Amran said and stepped forward, his fists ablaze. Their leader did not seem to be a man who makes mock duels but he was oddly silent and was observing Amran as well as us. He probably wanted to see our capabilities firsthand and that’s why he allowed his man to challenge us like the way he did.  
“You also do not have to worry about tournament’s protection spell. I joined the tournament just so I can fight other participants fair and square,” said the fire mage and attacked with an insane speed thanks to the boost he got from the fire thrusters coming from the sole of his feet. Amran blocked the guy with a fire wall and rolled it towards his attacker. The Kemerian guard swiftly side stepped and send a stream of fire to Amran through his palms. Amran reciprocated with his own stream of fire. It looked like two dragons were playing tug of war with their fire breathes but instead, they were pushing. The connection point of the two streams turned into a colossal fire pillar and twisted the rushing hot air around it. I could see that, in the heat of the battle, Amran briefly lost his control over his spell and he let a small beam of light out of his palm. I just hoped he would not kill the guard. The light beam created an explosion when hit to the fiery twister. The heat wave and shock wave from the explosion made its way to the guard and engulfed him completely. I did not think anyone could have made alive after such explosion, but to my surprise, the fire mage soared to the sky from the flames. He was not only alive, but also on fire. His skin looked like magma and he was enveloped in a fiery aura. He was emanating searing heat and blinding light like the sun.  
“You dare use the power of my ancestors against me. Let me show you how it is done,” he shouted in fury and dove like a bird of prey in order to attack Amran. Amran was in complete bewilderment by this flashy display of power but he quickly raised his guard up and lunged forward in order to counter-attack. Both mages pointed their palms in the direction of their adversaries, and there was light; pure white light. It happened too quickly for Kurzon or me to interfere. They were going to kill each other.  
Fortunately, their leader stepped in the middle of the confrontation just in time and grabbed both Amran’s and his soldier’s wrists. With an incredible feat of agility and martial arts prowess, he easily re-directed the light beams to the sky and tossed both of them to their corners, thus brought a halt to the fight.  
“Let’s stop this fight before someone dies,” he said and looked at his man sternly. “General Kurzon, as a former soldier, I ask for your understanding. We have received some grim news on the way here. There are some enemy movements on our Ollendor border. I am afraid Ollendor knows the protection dome is gone and they are preparing for an attack. They have powerful weapons that can hit our city. That’s why we came here to take over the royal jewel. We can take it to Kemeria faster than you could. Even moments are important for the safety of our citizens.”  
“We came here to help you, if it weren’t for us, you would have been ambushed by bandits, mages and mercenaries,” said the mage clad in the armored suit. The voice was also feminine in addition to the mask.  
“So that’s how we came this far without being attacked. Well, you have our thanks for that,” Kurzon said.  
“No need to thank us. Retrieving the jewel is our responsibility, so is protecting these lands. We are just doing our jobs. My word is King’s word. The king will honor his side of the agreement and you can speak to him when you arrive in Kemeria,” the leader of the guards said sincerely. “May I have the jewel, now?”  
Kurzon asked Brock to give the jewel to the guards. “Well, you should have led with that,” Brock complained and gave the jewel to the guards.  
“My apologies, master dwarf. Thank you for your service. We will be seeing you in Kemeria,” he said and turned to his comrades. The old mage with a wooden staff summoned five ethereal horses and they all rode towards Kemeria like gusting winds.  
“Those horses look handy. Can you summon ethereal horses?” Juniper asked Etri.  
“No. Why? If you want a ride, I can summon Black King,” he said.  
“No, I wanted to ride an ethereal horse,” Juniper said. “You should ask him to teach you that magic.”  
“I can conjure a dead pony if you want to ride, friend,” Mezzargard said.  
“I am sure you can Mez, no need for that,” Etri dismissed Mezzargard. “Just hang tight to your shovel.”  
“Are you okay, Amran?” I asked.  
“I have not been better for a long time. Did you see that guy? He also used that light beam magic,” Amran said in joy. “Maybe I can get him to give me some pointers.”  
"Well, I hope you find him more receptive," I said. "I have to buy a new sword, it appears we will stay there for a while."  
“In that case, I will head for the sacred forests between Kemeria and Thilias to get a glowing pine cone. I will meet with you at Kemeria so we can finally pass our first objective,” Kurzon said, always right to the point.  
“Are you going to be okay? We can come with you,” I said.  
“I will pass close by Ogre stronghold, but I know all hidden tracks. I will move faster if I am alone. Do not worry about me, I will see you in Kemeria in three days,” he said and left.  
We arrived in Kemeria after night fall. The protection dome was re-built in its full glory.


	20. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group finally finds a safe haven. Rai gets a new sword and Kurzon brings a glowing pinecone but...

CHAPTER 20  
We spent that night at the tavern where I found Amran a week ago. With the first lights, Brock and Etri offered to forge me a new sword. “We will craft a sword far better than your old one, just wait and see,” Etri said. They gathered their crafting supplies and took off. They were really excited about it. Mezzargard went to the city cemetery to ‘pay his respect to the dead’. I, Amran and Juniper went to see the King of Kemeria. At the gates of the palace, we were met by two of the elite guards, the fiery mage who challenged Amran and the masked guard.  
“Well, well! If it ain’t the heroes who saved our city,” the fiery mage said in a mocking tone.  
“Not these guys again,” Juniper said with a fed up tone. “We do not want to fight you; we came here to see the king.”  
“Yes, of course. Please ignore him. You are our esteemed guests here. We apologize for our abrupt departure yesterday. My name is Sigrun and our hot headed friend here is Anroth. We are here to escort you. Our king is waiting,” the armored guard said and removed the masked helmet. Now, the feminine voice and appearance made more sense. The guard was female. Since her armor concealed her aura, it took me by surprise. As she took off the helmet, her chestnut hair cascaded down her shoulders, and her beauty which was enough to make any princess mad from jealousy was perfectly complimented by a pair of lush green eyes. Amran gave me a hard nudge just in time to prevent me from making a fool out of myself as I was completely mesmerized by her beauty.  
“Ah, yes,” I managed to blurt out. “We… here to see the King.”  
“Shall we?” she said while giving a polite smile and took us to the throne room. King Bellinor, Duke Whyte and the captain of the elite guards were at the table, eating breakfast. We saluted the king and he invited us to his table and gave us the good news. He had signed the decree that abolished the slavery in the kingdom of Kemeria when his men brought the jewel.  
“We thank you for your service; you and your kin will always be welcomed in these lands. You are free to stay in the city as much as you need. Now if you do not have anything else, I have some business to attend to,” he said and left with his council. Amran asked to speak with Anroth privately, probably about his light magic which he exhibited yesterday in the hope of finding some clues about this mysterious power and maybe his past. While Juniper went to the palace’s workshop to get some tinkering supplies, I was left with Sigrun. After a brief and awkward silent, she took the lead and asked;  
“So my uncle said you were from Olmnar,” she said and added when he saw my questioning eyes. “My uncle, King Bellinor; he is my uncle.”  
“Are you a princess?” I asked and realized I had never been in the presence of a princess and did not know what to say to princess when you met one.  
“Oh, no I am not. I was adopted. Never mind that,” she said and assumed a grim expression. “Were you there, in Olmnar, when it happened… the explosion?”  
“I was at the outskirt of the city, in a safe distance but still saw it. There was a man floating above the city and then a flash, flames towering up to the clouds like a giant mushroom. I do not remember the rest much,” I said while making sure to conceal my aura as it was a lie. I did remember the rest; how I was attacked and kidnapped, then sold to the Lessathi and taken to the Beacon of hope.  
“I am sorry, I didn't mean to pry,” she said. She looked like she wanted to say more but decided to change the subject. “Let’s join your friend in the workshop.” When we caught up with Juniper, we found her discussing on her water teleport diagrams with the resident tinkerer and the royal engineer. She wanted to purchase some items she needed but they insisted on giving the artifacts for free. Amran joined us some time later but he seemed a bit off. It appeared what Anroth had to say gave Amran more questions and troubles instead of answers. Before we left the palace, Sigrun gave me a metallic feather from her cape. “I feel like we still owe you for what you did for us, please accept this.”  
“What is this?” I asked while examining the feather.  
“When you are in need of our help, activate that feather by applying your aura on it. It will notify me so we can come to your aid,” she said. I thanked her for the present and left, still feeling she had a lot to say but held back for some reason.  
While we spent the next day resting and waiting for Kurzon to show up, the dwarven brothers toiled night and day relentlessly to finish my super weapon, as per Etri, as quick as possible. Amran spent most of his time in the city library doing some historic research. At the dawn of the third day, I picked up Kurzon’s aura. He must have stopped hiding it when he entered the city so we could find him. We all met in the market square. Finally everyone was together and more importantly we had the two ingredients we needed to pass our first objective. Kurzon gave the pinecone to Juniper.  
“Okay guys, here goes nothing,” she said and activated the machine. We waited for a while happily expecting to see how pinecones glowed, but to our dismay, there was no light.  
“What’s going on, where is the glow?” Etri asked when his patience ran out. “Do not tell me the machine is broken.”  
“I do not know, they do not connect,” Juniper said while trying to find out the problem. After a couple of failed attempts to start the machine she said, “Sorry guys, it won’t work.”  
“We did all of this for nothing,” Brock exclaimed.  
“I am sorry. This is my fault. I suggested getting the king’s machine,” I said in despair feeling guilty for pursuing this quest.  
“It was our collective decision Rai, do not beat yourself up over it,” Kurzon said. “Is there any way to make it work, Juniper?” he asked.  
“Well, good news! There might be a way. So, this machine was built for a magical rose and that’s why it won’t synchronize with a pinecone. In theory, it can be altered for a pinecone; it just needs some tuning. Bad news! I cannot do it. It was built by a Lessathi and they are very secretive about their ways. Only the original inventor can do it,” she said.  
“Okay, do we know who built this machine?” Amran asked and looked at me.  
“King’s advisor should know. After all, it was made on King’s request. They must have some sort of record,” I said and once again we went to the palace to see Duke Whyte. The Duke was very helpful and quickly found the records we needed.  
“You are in luck my friends, we still keep these records,” he said while reading the contract they had for the machine. “The machine was built by a freelancer Lessathi. He goes by the name Jimmy Jib.”  
“Jimmy Jib,” Etri repeated and chuckled. “I thought Amran’s name was funny.”  
“Your face is funny,” Amran retorted.  
“Well, that is what he is called. His real name is… let me see,” and he perused the contract. “Aha, his real name is Jimijojabbarratsanor. I remember he was very self-conscious about his name. If you find this funny, you should hear his cousin Billy Bob’s real name. Ah, I cannot even pronounce it.”  
“Now, I want to meet the parents,” Etri remarked. “Some people are just so pretentious.”  
“Shut your face, will you?” Brock said. “Where can we find this Jimmy what’s his name, Duke?”  
“He travels a lot, but last I heard, he took a job in Thilias. King Golmyck and the owner of the arena needed some help. So I suggest you go there to look for him,” the Duke said. We waved goodbye to the Duke and made our way to the inn to spend the night. I wrote a message on the stars for Kiki and Kir and hoped they were available to take us to Thilias. “It would take at least a week to go there on foot, our best option is to call them,” Kurzon said although he was not fond of traveling by auto-buus. Luckily, they saw my message and Kir responded saying they could meet us at a crossroad on our way to Thilias, in two days. In the morning, we made our last preparations to leave the city. Brock and Etri were waiting for us at the gates. I knew there was something up with them when Etri was grinning more than usual.  
“Get ready to be blown away!” he declared as if he was giving a formal speech. “Here is our latest creation, the mightiest weapon for the mightiest warrior from the mightiest blacksmiths in the world, BEHOLD!”  
“I am almost sure you are adopted, you know,” Brock scolded Etri. “We worked with what we had brother, I hope you like it.”  
“We replicated the oriental style of your former sword. Though it is a bit heavier and longer than your lost sword, the shape is almost the same. It is curved backwards and single-edged. The blade is smooth with honeycomb shaped guard. We made an elongated grip to accommodate two handed style and kneaded it with red silk so it sits right in your hand,” Etri explained.  
“We also used the enchanted items and magical artifacts I collected from the monks who worship the God of Blood. The blade is infused with their magic, in other words, you can enhance your physical attributes when you sacrifice some of your blood. There are six prayer beads embedded to the handguard. They represent strength, toughness, speed, reflexes, senses and perception. Their position to the center of the blade governs how much enhancement you get for each attribute. So basically, the more your bleed, the stronger you get. I know it has downsides but I am sure you can make good use of it,” Brock said while showing us how to use the prayer beads.  
“It is also nigh-indestructible, made with dwarven steel,” Etri added.  
It was nothing but a miracle to create such good work in just three days. Leave the blood enchantments, the sword itself was master quality weapon and worth a big chunk of gold, but with the enchantments, it was priceless.  
“I do not know how to pay for this, thank you guys. I really appreciate it,” I said.  
“Consider it paid, brother,” Brock said.  
“So, what about the name?” Etri said with a wide smirk on his face. “I have some suggestions, already.”  
“Okay, let’s hear it, Etri,” I said to indulge him since he seemed so enthusiastic.  
“Bloodborne!” he said while elongating the last syllable with a deepened voice.  
“It seems you were inspired from somewhere and it is a bit cheesy,” I stated.  
“What? Where is it coming from? I was not inspired. It is totally original,” Etri mumbled. “Okay, I have another one, Blood Queen.”  
“What do you think about ‘Redquin’?” I asked Etri.  
“Hmm, it is not as good as my names but I liked it,” Etri replied.  
“It is decided then. I promise I will use Redquin of Brock and Etri honorably and I will always remember you, the legendary dwarven blacksmiths of the northern continent.”  
Just as six of us departed from Kemeria and headed for Thilias, I remembered we forget something, rather someone. Since nobody had seen Mezzargard for the last three days, we left a message for him to the city guards to meet us in Thilias and left.


	21. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> our group thought they could get some breather and a safe journey to Thilias but they could not be so wrong.

We left the walls of Kemeria behind and made our way to the cross road where we were supposed to meet Kiki and Kir. Although we had to complete yet another task in order to move on to the second round, everyone was in a jolly mood; except Amran. He was still a bit silent since his conversation with the fiery mage Anroth. I decided to talk to him about it tonight at the camp.  
“This wild goose chase started to get on my nerves. That Jimmy Jib guy better not give us any problems after all we did,” Etri said. “What if he says he won’t do it?”  
“Do not worry about that. I would be more than happy to shove my fist down his throat to solve his problems,” Brock replied his brother.  
“Or we can pay him, right?” Juniper said in a scolding tone. “We do not have to solve all of our problems with violence. We had enough of that since the beginning.”  
“It is nice to see we haven’t forgotten common sense completely,” Kurzon said. “He is a professional, paying him would be faster.”  
At night time, we set up our camp. Our bags were full of delicacies from the city and we made a spicy archer porcupine stew with some wild onions and mushrooms we found nearby. The dwarven brothers went all out with their ale and it was clear which sibling was better at keeping it together after countless bottles of ale. Etri started muttering some bullshit;  
“You… you’re my bestie, Amran. You know that, right? You have balls of lava, buddy. So hot that…” he said and hiccupped. “And you, you Juniper. You are beautiful like a ram, yeah… and your hair is orange…” he said and took a big gulp from his bottle.  
“Yeah, we all know she has orange hair, buddy,” I said. “Maybe you drank a bottle too many, or two.”  
“And she is so brave… she can even ride a wolf and storm a fort,” he blurted out.  
“What? You saw that!” Juniper asked in surprise.  
“What wolf riding?” Amran and I asked in unison.  
“Well, the cats are out of the bag. I carried Juniper when we charged into the bandit’s fort the other day.” Kurzon said.  
“How did you see that?” Amran asked. “And more importantly how come I did not see it?”  
“Ah, you chose the wrong corridor, buddy. It was one hell of a sight,” Etri said and raised his bottle. “To Honour!” he said and rolled on his back like a turtle, spilling his ale on his clothes.  
“I am gonna take my idiot brother to his tent before he further humiliates himself,” Brock said and carried Etri to his tent.  
“I guess we all deserved a bit of fun after all,” Kurzon said. “But it is time for bed now.”  
I suggested that Amran and I took the first watch duty. “Let’s finish our last chess match. This time I am confident that I will beat you,” I said. This was perfect to get Amran talk a bit and hopefully spill what was bothering him. We secured the premises and sat around the bonfire which was almost extinguished. We were able to see a very frightening lightning storm far out in the direction of Ollendor. I prayed for the souls who might have trapped in the storm. After Amran made his first move;  
“So, let’s hear it, friend. I know you well enough to see something was not right with you since Kemeria,” I said and took his rook which was left wide open. “Otherwise, you would not have left your left wing defenseless.”  
“Sorry, it is true that I have not been myself since I talked to Anroth,” Amran said in grief. “I probably put the team at risk, too.”  
“Don’t worry about that,” I said trying to relieve him of his dark thoughts. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”  
“Of course! I asked Anroth what he knew about his ‘light’ powers,” Amran said and explained. “He only knew what his mother told him. It turns out our light powers comes from the light dragon, queen of the dragons. Apparently, only our clan members can perform this magic because it was taught to us by the queen of the dragons. So only the dragons and my clan can do it. He also said that our ancestors used to be her bodyguards and servants.”  
“So, are you and Anroth related?” I asked. “And your family used to serve the light dragon?”  
“Yes, I believe we are distant cousins, and our clan served the queen of the dragons,” Amran said.  
“Well, that’s good news. That means you can track this light dragon and find your clan. I am sure they can give you more information about your powers and your biological family,” I said in the hopes of cheering Amran but it actually made him sadder.  
“No, Rai. Here is the bad news. Nobody has seen the light dragon for centuries and our clan is no more. I am the first clan member Anroth has seen in his entire life except his mother. He told me that our clan members had been hunted and murdered systematically by some group. He did not know by whom or why. He also told me not to use my powers in public as this group may come after me,” Amran said.  
“I am sorry to hear that, Amran. Believe me I know what it means to be hunted,” I said. “What are you planning to do now?”  
“Well, I wanted to speak with Anroth’s mother but she had died last year. Anroth told me to check out the library and some books about the light dragon. Apparently, he’d never read but he knew there was some history books.”  
“So, that’s why you spent days in the library. Have you found anything useful?” I asked.  
“I found some trivial knowledge about the queen of dragons and the clan that served her. The books said my clan swore an oath to protect the light queen and some sort of artifact. But, that’s it. There was nothing about what happened to the queen or my clan.”  
“That’s some grave news. Do you have any leads to follow now?” I asked.  
“I hope to find something more useful in Thilias library. I will keep searching for a clue, Rai,” Amran said. He appeared to be at ease, slightly.  
“That’s the spirit and I will help you in your quest. Our journey has just started my friend. We uncover something new in every turn and under every rock. I am sure we will find the breadcrumbs that will lead us to the truth behind your family,” I said.  
“Thanks Rai. I knew I could rely on you,” he said and took my bishop. “Don’t think I will go easy on you.”  
“I expect nothing less, buddy,” I chuckled.  
I was glad that we talked things through. It was almost the end of our shift, and to our surprise, I picked up Mezzargard’s aura. Shortly after, he showed up with slow and calm steps.  
“Hello friends, it is such a good night. I got your message and followed you,” he said.  
“Good night Mez. How can you constantly bypass Kurzon suggestion spell?” I asked. “It’s supposed to prevent people finding our campground.”  
“I followed the tracking spell I put on Brock,” he explained.  
“Where have you been all this time?” Amran asked. “We did not hear from you so we depart.”  
“Oh, I was at the cemetery communing with the dead,” he said and shifted his gaze to the campground. “I wish to rest now, if that’s okay with you.”  
“Right! Communing with the dead,” Amran said in a mocking tone. “That was my first guess, too. Good night.”  
Shortly after Mez set up his tent, Kurzon and Juniper relieved us from the watch duty at midnight and we went to our tents to sleep. In the morning, we had a modest breakfast and we headed towards Thilias. We decided to stop using the road and diverted to grass meadows in order to save some time; as we were supposed to meet Kiki precisely at noon. Suddenly, we were cut off by a group of tournament participants consisting of three dwarves, a human, an elf and a banshee. Being cut off by a group was never a good sign, but something in Etri and Brock’s behavior made me feel as tense as a fully drawn bow.  
“Rai! I recognized the dark skinned mage with two swords,” Juniper whispered. “He is an ex-sage from the southern continent, his name is Nolderan. He is an enchanter.”  
As if the ex-sage knew we were talking about him, he stepped forward and address to me. “Are you the swordsman called Rai?” he said. “You must be. What are the odds we encounter a different non-mage tournament participant who wields a sword, huh?”  
“I would say it is very slim but you never know,” I replied. “Let’s say I am the person you seek; what then?”  
“Normally, I would offer to join me, the great sage of the North. But I doubt a non-mage like you could be of any service to me,” one of the dwarves said. “But what the hell, I am in a good mood today. A friend of ours said you acquired a glowing pinecone thanks to your animal familiar over there. Simply hand it over to us and we will reward you handsomely by letting you join us. When I win the Magium, you can benefit from it. At your current level, this would be as far as you can proceed anyways.”  
Upon the sage of the North completed his sentence, Etri loudly spit in front of the sage. As the sage infuriated by the move, Brock released his shield from his shoulder and grasped it tightly.  
“Join you?” Brock said. “We would rather die, you murderer.”  
So this was Talmak, the notorious sage of the North who destroyed Etri and Brock’s hometown and killed their father. Although he was rather plain looking for a dwarf, I decided to keep my guard up.  
“Well, then you die,” the sage said. “Is that the answer for all of you? I would be just as happy to take the pinecone from your corpses.”  
“Don’t be stupid, swordsman,” Nolderan said. “You can still make a name for yourself. What do you say?”  
I waited for a brief second before replying as I looked at my teammates; I just wanted to know that they were aware of the danger of fighting two sages at the same time. “Do you know when a swordsman draws his sword?” I asked while slowly drawing mine.  
“When he intends to use it,” Nolderan said and chuckled while drawing his own swords.  
Etri suddenly yelled at the top of his lungs and threw a couple of hammers towards the sage. The sage easily blocked the hammer by raising a wall from the ground. Brock swung his axe and propelled one of his enlarging marbles to the sage. The enlarged marble broke the wall but the sage effortlessly raised himself on a pillar made of earth and hurled multiple boulders at us. As Brock took the brunt of it with his phalanx shield, one of the debris hit Juniper. Etri overcame with anger and charged towards Talmak.  
“No, Etri. Do not break the formation,” I yelled but he would not listen to me. Right after that, Brock also attacked head on to the sage. For some reason, I could not bring myself to be angry at them, knowing what emotions they were going through at the moment.  
Nolderan came at me full force without wasting any moment. I asked Juniper to cloak herself and get as far away as possible. Now, it was time to test the limits of my new sword Redquin, though this was a test I couldn’t afford to fail. As I cut my left hand’s thumb in order to smear my blood on the blade, I felt an unholy surge of power through my gut. Since I did not know if he had any strength enhancing enchantments, I decided to boost my strength and speed stats. I had to rely on my mutant powers for reflexes. Nolderan jumped and attacked me with a spinning move usually done by street performers in choreographed fights to hype up the viewers. Although this move was nowhere viable in a real fight, he did it with so much grace, accuracy and power behind it that could have easily broken my defense if it weren’t for my strength boost. It looked like his swords were shock proof as they did not convey my lightning. There was no doubt this person was once a sage as he kept pressing on relentlessly. The banshee quickly moved towards Kurzon and cut him off from us by summoning a bunch of predator animals. Luckily, she was more interested in talking rather than fighting. All I could hear was something about a different banshee in between their attacks. The other two dwarves were fire mages like Amran. Alone they could not have hoped to compete with Amran, but both of them were just enough to keep Amran at bay thanks to the help of the elven mage’s shield spells. They gradually took the upper hand and started to push us. While Kurzon desperately tried to break through the banshee and help us, I was having a hard time deflecting Nolderan’s combo attacks faster than a gatling gun. I was bleeding all over my body. All this blood gave me additional stat boost to resist Nolderan, alas, this was a gamble I knew I could not win. There were fire balls, rock projectiles, and ethereal hammers everywhere. While we were exerting ourselves, our opponents did not show any sign of fatigue. As a last resort to gain the upper hand, Etri summoned his manticore Black king and took the fight to the sky, but took a hit from a rock explosion. He fell from the sky while poor Black King struggled to soften the fall. Talmak toppled a huge pillar on Etri to crush him, fortunately Brock intercepted just in time with his shield spell which drained almost all his energy. In the midst of all this chaos, Mezzargard looked at Etri and Brock with a dumbstruck expression.  
“Are you okay, friend?” Mezzargard asked.  
“Do I look okay to you?” Etri exploded with fury.  
“Wipe that dumb expression and give us a hand. Will you?” Brock yelled.  
Now, Mezzargard made an even dumber face expression and looked at his hand as if to examine it. It was clear to me that he was trying to figure out how he could give his hand to Brock.  
“Mezzargard! Help us fight against the other guys,” I had to spell it out for him.  
“Oh, why didn’t you say so friend,” he said. “I did not want to disrespect by interfering because…”  
“Shut up and do something,” Etri shouted.  
Upon hearing Etri’s words, Mezzargard slammed his shovel to the ground and the sky darkened in a second while fire and brimstone poured on our foes. From the point where the shovel hit, multiple fissures spread out like a spider web. Undead corpses had risen with green background lights as the fissures turned into wide cracks. One could say the gates of underground opened and all hell broke loose. “By the gods, Mezzargard is a necromancer.”


	22. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mezzargard has a secret.

CHAPTER 22  
When Mezzargard activated his spell, he commenced uttering some sort of prayer. As far as I could hear, it went like this; “O Dire One, we are your ever faithful disciples, heed my call and bless me with wisdom. With your grace, we follow your path and spread peace amongst the dead. O ghosts of the fallen ones lend me your strength and smite my foes…” As Mezzargard murmured this invocation, ten undead warriors emerged from the cracks in the ground. These undead warriors were not only mere skeletons, but also had flesh, tendons and pale skin. They were dressed as well, although the clothes were rather old and dusty. Seven of the undead had red, harrowed robes on them. They looked like monk robes… “Wait a minute,” I thought to myself. They were the Koyo monks who attacked us on the way to Galamir. Precisely the seven we managed to kill on that night, they even had their serrated staffs. “Is that why he buried them? So he could summon them.” The monks took formation just like they did when they had attacked us. They fanned out as if commanded by their leader and simultaneously attacked all of our foes, but mainly the sage of the north Talmak. Another two undead warriors were archers and they were even able to cast a spell that replenished their quivers with arrows. They started a suppressing fire against the sage who was up in the air on a pillar made out of rocks. As we now had the numbers, the battle seemed to favor us. However my opponent Nolderan was unfazed by this event that turned the tide. “This changes nothing…” he said but had to cut his sentence short due to an attack that came from his blind side. The tenth undead jumped on Nolderan with a drop kick. Nolderan barely dodged and rolled to the safety while the kick had created a small shockwave of dust. The tenth undead had almost no sign of decay as his flesh and skin was mostly intact, although a little pale; he was very well built, had studded gloves, no clothing except a pair of leather pants, and he had spiky red hairs.  
“Hahaha, I am back swordsman. Don`t you dare getting bested by this guy after beating me; it will make me look bad,” he said with a confident and happy voice as he raised his guard up. “COME ON!”  
I could not believe my eyes. The bandit whom I killed in a fist fight was standing right in front of me, helping me to fight the ex-sage of the south. This was Tora the pugilist mage. Mezzargard must have buried him too while he was waiting for us in the forest where the bandits ambushed us. Well, there was no time to waste, not while fighting a foe of Nolderan’s caliber. I decided to go along and ask my questions later.  
“Let’s go, Tora,” I said and we attacked Nolderan as a team. Knowing how Tora fights, I managed to adjust my style to match his. It was Nolderan’s time to stay on defense.  
As a result of the fire rain, the elven mage had to focus on protecting his team mates from the meteors and cancel the shield spell that protected the dwarven fire mages who fought Amran. Without the protection, Amran took control of the fight against the dwarven mages in no time; they were having trouble to counter Amran`s barrage of fire balls. Etri and Brock launched a counterattack against Talmak with the help of the undead and, of course, Black King. While Talmak was overwhelmed by the arrows, acrobatic attacks of the monks and Etri`s spinning hammers, Brock destroyed the sage’s pillar with his own earthen pillar attack thanks to his axe’s runic ability. Talmak fell and disappeared under the rubble for a brief moment but he came back fiercely by pushing the rocks away from him.  
“You, insects!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. His face was reddened and his temple became prominent out of anger. “You think you can compete with me. When I am done with you, they will have to scrape your corpses off of the ground with a razor.”  
Talmak shook the ground and started raising a colossal rock golem while he put himself in the head of the golem. It was at least fifty foot, by far the tallest and biggest magical structure I had ever seen. At this point, I decided to activate my teleportation scroll to get out of this area but Mezzargard had other plans. He twisted his shovel as if turning a key in the keyhole and another fissure proceeded towards Talmak’s golem. As a green aura enveloped Mez, the fissure widened drastically. A huge boney hand came out of the crack; its fingers were as long as I was. An undead giant came out of the rift and widened it even further. One foot of the golem fell into the crack the giant made. The giant wore a tunic made out of mammoth fur, half rotten. It wielded a splintered wooden shield as big as a long boat and an enormous axe with a rusted blade which made it even more threatening. There was still a bit of skin and flesh left on its body. Its beard was grey and its face was covered by a half helmet ornamented with a pair of mammoth tusks. It stood fifty feet tall before Talmak’s golem which was kneeling due to its trapped foot. The giant was leaking green magical energy. Despite its massive body, the undead giant raised its arm and lowered the huge hunk of corroded metal to the golem’s neck with great force and speed. The impact demolished the golem like a wrecking ball, scattering debris everywhere. Golem’s head fell on the ground while Talmak was in it. The giant’s old bones, which were held together by decaying muscle, tendons and mostly magic, stretched and yawned with every move like a sail boat’s mast. I could see that Mezzargard was putting everything he got into sustaining this spell. He was straining his body beyond limits and possibly shortening his own life, and I was afraid he was not able to continue the spell much longer. The giant went for the head with its next attack but the golem stopped the attack by holding the axe’s shaft. The giant reciprocated by bashing the golem’s arm with its shield, destroying the golem’s arm along with its wooden shield. Rendering the golem totally defenseless, the giant made one more attempt to crush the head with Talmak inside.  
“God damn it. Get us out of here!” Talmak shouted to his teammates. Talmak and his team teleported out just as the giant crushed the golem’s head. We seemed to be safe and victorious thanks to Mezzargard. Finally, Mez halted his spell and removed his shovel from the ground. The sky opened up and fissures converged as the undead, including Tora, returned to the ground where they came from.  
Etri looked at the half destroyed golem and then Mezzargard. “We won! Take that Talmak, you son of a bitch!” Etri said and he ran up to Mezzargard. Etri hugged him and lifted up in the air. “I love you, man.”  
“Are you a necromancer?” Juniper de-cloaked and asked with a bit of fear in her voice.  
“Yes, I am a necromancer,” Mez said.  
“Do you follow the God of Death?” Amran asked before Mez had a chance to reply to Juniper.  
“Oh, no!” he said with a sour face. “We follow the teachings of our leader Rathma.”  
“Why did you not tell us you were a necromancer?” Brock asked.  
“That’s because you did not ask.”  
“Okay, guys! Let’s give him some space to breathe,” I said. Although his feelings and state were impossible to tell from his face, since he never made any facial expressions even in the heat of the battle, I could tell that he was suffering from mental and magical fatigue. “The sage may come back with reinforcement, we must leave immediately,” Kurzon advised and we were more than eager to comply. After Kurzon healed our injuries, we proceeded towards the meeting point with Kiki. Fortunately, we were not followed by Talmak’s men. By noon, a bit later than the rendez-vous time, we arrived at the crossroad in the middle of some hills with plain grass, expecting to see Kiki and Kir waiting for us. But to our surprise, they were not here.  
“Do you think they were attacked by Talmak?” Etri asked after waiting a while for them to show up.  
“Hush!” Kurzon said and put his ear to the ground to listen. “I hear some knocking noises… like a stampede.”  
After Kurzon’s observation, I felt a continuous but faint tremor which, overtime, became more obvious and strong like an earthquake. As we heard the roaring of the auto-buus’ engine, the vehicle darted over one of the hills. “Hey, there they are,” Juniper said. “Why is she not using the road?” Etri asked. Kiki was leaning out of the windows, shouting and flailing her left arm while steering the vehicle with the other. She was trying to tell something, but it was so loud to be able to hear her. As she came down full speed over the grassy hill, some beasts appeared after them. A herd of wild trampler beasts were chasing the auto-buus. “I cannot stop, you have to hop in while we move,” Kiki shouted and Kir opened the tailgate.  
“Holy shit!” Brock exclaimed. “Slow down, gods damn it.”  
Kiki passed us while we all started running in the same direction. When she slowed down and positioned the vehicle right in front of us, we jumped in. While Amran picked up Juniper and flew to the roof thanks to his fire thrusters coming from the soles of his feet, the rest of us landed on top of each other at the back of the vehicle. “Sorry for the inconvenience, guys,” Kiki said and looked back at us while smiling apologetically.


	23. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OUR GROUP ESCAPED FROM THE GRASP OF TALMAK BUT THEY GOT CAUGHT IN SOMETHING WORSE

CHAPTER 23  
“What is the plan?” Juniper asked in terror. “They are gaining on us.” Trampler beasts seemed to be angry and very determined to catch us.  
“What did you do to make them this angry?” Amran asked Kiki.  
“We maaay have disturbed their breeding ground,” Kiki said. “We were late to our rendez-vous, so I thought it might be a good idea to use a shortcut. It is not my fault the herd happened to be there.”  
“Can you speed up now since we are on the road?” I asked.  
“Sorry, bud!” Kir said. “I am almost out of magic juice. We cannot increase our speed, actually we are about to slow down even more.”  
“That’s not good,” Brock said. “What do we do now?”  
“Well, we were kind of counting on you,” Kiki said. “Do magic, wave your hands or something.”  
“That is easier said than done. That’s a huge herd,” Kurzon said. “And I would rather not kill them in the process; maybe we can spook or distract them.” After hearing Kurzon’s words, Etri started grinning, “I’ve got the perfect solution, guys. If there is anything spookier than an angry herd of trampler beasts, it is an angrier swarm of yellow jackets.”  
“What are you waiting for, an invitation?” Brock shouted. “Do it then, summon them.”  
“Be careful though. I do not have full control over them,” Etri said and summoned a big swarm of bees. The bees scattered all over the herd and started attacking randomly. The majority of the beasts were too busy trying to fend off the bees; they stopped chasing us, although some of the more persistent ones still were on our tail. Juniper threw a couple of smoke grenades and the remaining beasts slowed down in order not to enter the smoke. When we made sure that the beasts were not running after us, we stopped to give a break. Kir was too exhausted to be able to continue channeling magical energy to the engine. Amran offered to take Kir’s place but after a couple of failed attempts to start the engine, he gave up. “Operating this engine is a lot more complicated than it looks,” he said. So we decided to call it a day and gave ourselves a good rest for the afternoon. We found a hidden opening close to the road and prepared our camp site. Kiki and Kir were doing very well in business wise. Thanks to the tournament, they never had any trouble finding passengers. They even started a delivery service between the store owners in different cities.  
“Come on, Mez! Tell us your story and your magic,” Etri said. “It is not like you see a necromancer every day.”  
“I come from a brotherhood of necromancers in the southern continent. We follow the teachings of our long deceased leader Rathma,” Mezzargard said. “Our duty is to travel the world and give a proper burial to the fallen warriors.”  
“What do you mean by proper burial?” I asked.  
“I perform a ritual to the corpse after burial that stops other necromancers from summoning their dead bodies without their consent,” Mez said. “That is our proper burial method. We believe dead should be left well alone unless they want otherwise.”  
“How can you summon the dead, then?” Etri asked.  
“I ask them if they want to continue fighting, I summon them only if they want to be summoned.”  
“No way! Can you communicate with the dead?” Juniper asked in excitement. “Can you contact my brother? He… died on the first day of the tournament.”  
“My condolences. Sorry, I should have chosen my words more carefully,” Mez said. “I do not actually talk to them, no one can. It is more like an instinct based on their memories and last thoughts.”  
Juniper had gotten sad and disappointed when she did not get the answer she wanted, but Kiki cheered everyone up with her upbeat mannerism and voice. She talked about the cities and towns they visited and the passengers they carried. After the sunset, everyone set up their tents, but Etri said he was not sleepy at all so he and I took the first watch duty.  
“How are your bees?” I asked Etri. “Did you manage to re-capture them?”  
“Yeah, I re-captured some but the majority of them either escaped or died. That was close, we do not have a strategy to fend off that kind of threat,” Etri replied.  
“No kidding,” I said. “It was worse in the morning; we were screwed if it weren’t for Mezzargard.”  
“That’s why we need to devise a powerful spell to fight against bigger threats,” Etri said in a deepened voice while stroking his chin.  
“Devise a spell?” I asked in curiosity. “Do you have something in mind?”  
“Of course, I do. I am glad you asked.”  
“I am sure you are, Etri,” I said. “So, what do you have in your mind?”  
“I am thinking of a combo move,” Etri said and explained. “My ethereal hammers imbued with the power of your lightning, and we will call it ‘thousand arcs of demon storm’.”  
“I am more concerned about how to do that than what to call it, at this stage,” I said.  
“I have some ideas on that too,” Etri said. “Do not underestimate the power of the name though.”  
Etri kept rambling about how we can use our powers together and where we can use it for hours; I was more than glad when Kurzon and Amran came to relieve us from the guard duty. In the morning, we woke up to a windy day; it must have been the after effects of the hurricane from the day before. We continued our journey to Thilias after a modest breakfast. Our driver Kiki told us that we should arrive at our destination by nightfall. Kiki and Kir maintained a slow but steady speed and we made sure to give periodic breaks so that Kir wouldn’t deplete his magical energy before reaching the city. I must have drifted off because I had not noticed that the day was only a couple of hours away from the dusk. “Are we there yet?” I asked just to let people know that I was awake. However the moment I finished my sentence, a strange feeling took me by surprise. I could hear the engine’s humming, but we were not… moving. When I looked outside the window, I realized that the trees were not flailing their branches and leaves with the wind and I saw a butterfly floating up in the air without fluttering about as if we and everything around had frozen in time. “Oh, no! This cannot be happening,” said the wolf in disbelief. All of us stepped outside of the vehicle and tried to understand what’s going on.  
“Kurzon, what’s happening?” asked Brock.  
“We are either being attacked by a mage who specializes in time magic or we are about to receive a message from the Magium; and I hope it is the former,” Kurzon said while carefully observing his surroundings.  
“A message from the Magium,” Juniper said. “Are you concerned about it?”  
“More like a prophecy, and I am actually worried about what comes next,” Kurzon said.  
“What comes?” As I was saying, but something made me stop in the middle of my sentence, or rather someone. An auburn haired, beautiful woman with a dress that matches her hair appeared out of nowhere. Just like she appeared in the blink of an eye, she disappeared in front of our eyes and reappeared behind us. She looked like she was in some sort of trance. She started speaking, but her voice was not that of a human at all due to high resonation in it, and delivered us a prophecy.  
“A prophecy, I have come to tell you…” she said. “A prophecy of things that may come to pass, but which have not yet been set in stone,” she continued and kept teleporting between spaces. “Listen carefully, to the event that will be foretold, and you may be able to prevent them happening, before it is too late. As two old enemies clash one final time, a great disaster that has once been avoided can no longer be prevented in the same way. An entire continent lies in ruins, while a single laugh made up from different voices echoes loudly throughout the realm.” When she completed the delivery, she stopped in her place and kept looking into space.  
“Okay, was that it?” Etri asked mockingly. “It was not too bad.”  
“The prophecy is over,” said Kurzon. “There should be something else…” Kurzon interrupted himself, since we were overwhelmed by a very strong air pressure and magical presence; a feeling of fright so strong that made our guts upset and our lunges shrink.  
“Greetings, mortals,” we heard several male voices, speaking in unison. “I, Selkram the God of Time, have come to bless you with my presence. Kneel before me, and I will give permission to gaze upon my magnificent form, in admiration.”  
“Just who the hell you think you are,” said Etri. “If you want a piece of me, come and get it.”  
“Just kneel, everyone,” Kurzon said with a sad but serious tone and he started kneeling. On one hand, the sheer desperation in Kurzon’s voice made me want to agree with him and kneel, but on the other hand my pride refused to give in to the command of a voice who had not even shown its face. Brock spat in the ground and said, “Why don’t you show yourself and make us, buddy?”  
“And I was thinking this group would have some more sense than the previous one,” god of time said. “It is not wise to speak to a god in that way. Allow me to pound some sense into your thick skulls.”  
Selkram expanded his aura and started crushing us with it. He performed this technique so fast and flawlessly, I did not have a chance to react and hit the focal point. All of us were pressed against the ground with a bone breaking force. As we screamed in agony, Juniper’s frail body could not take more and broke into pieces; collapsing her rib cage and skull and killing her on the spot. As I watched Juniper’s lifeless body, I couldn’t help but feel desperate and responsible; after all it was me who convinced Juniper to continue the tournament and now I failed her. Just as I was struggling to keep my composure and find a way to end this torture, Selkram reversed the time and Juniper’s body became one piece again as she came back to life. He kept torturing us, killing Juniper and reversing time as he pleased over and over again. When he removed the pressure and gave us a moment to breathe, Kurzon urged us once more to do what Selkram said. Knowing how Juniper suffered and how our resistance was futile, we unwillingly knelt.  
“This is better,” he said. “You will all participate in my ritual which is about to start. Prepare yourselves.”  
When the god of time stopped talking, a bright light filled my entire vision.


	24. MAGIUM, FANFIC, SHADOW WALKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some background story about Rai as he goes thru the ritual of God of Time.

CHAPTER 24  
My senses and consciousness returned to me in a forest; I had no idea how I came here, but this place felt so familiar somehow. As I looked around to find some clues, I noticed that none of my equipment was with me and I was wearing some baggy clothes similar to the ones my mother gave me. As I investigated further I realized the differences were not limited to my clothes and items. My body was weaker and smaller than it was a minute ago as if i became young again, if I had to guess, I would say my current age was fifteen. “How is this possible?” I asked myself. “Was this the power of the god of time?” I did not think so. Nobody had that kind of power, except Magium maybe.  
I concluded that I was in the Foghorn Forest in the western continent, and by the looks of it, I was very near to my mother’s cabin. In order to find out what was happening, I decided to proceed towards the cabin. Every step, I investigated the authenticity of the forest and my surroundings to make sure I was not in an illusion. Everything felt so real, even the pinch I gave to myself. Taking my sweet time and being distracted by this unusual event , I arrived at the cabin only to see a couple of banshee hunters attacking my mother. Only after then, I figured exactly when the God of Time sent me. This was the day my mother died.   
Not knowing what to do, my hand instinctively searched for my non-existent sword. Keeping the banshee hunters at bay, my mother saw me and after a brief moment, she said, “I am sorry for what I am going to do but one day you will understand me… son.” Kara waved her hands in a strange whirling motion and then waved him goodbye. A blue light surrounded my body and teleported me out of there. The last thing I saw was that my mother lowered her defenses as she yielded and one of the hunters drove his spear right into my mother’s heart in front of my eyes. All I could do was to yell in despair.   
When the teleportation was complete, I was in utter shock. “How this could be, this was not how it happened,” I said to myself. As I was trying to give a meaning to what just had happened, a white bright light filled my vision again. I found myself in the forest once more. “A second chance,” I thought. The god of time said this was a ritual. I wondered if I could save my mother from that gruesome fate, I wondered if the God of Time had that kind of power. Maybe with Magium’s power, it might have been possible. This time, I was going to save her.   
I darted towards the cabin. I had to be there before it started. I did not have a weapon, the wood cutting axe would have to do. My mother was drawing water from the well. She was surprised as to why I was in such a hurry. I grabbed the axe and passed her with great speed without giving her a chance to stop me. I lunged towards the bushes at the other end of the opening as I knew exactly where the banshee hunters would come out. I lodged the axe in one of the hunters forehead and split his skull. I felt weird to have the necessary martial art skill although I indeed did not know how to use a weapon at that age. The banshee hunters were so dumbstruck, I was able to kill two more before they could see who attacked them. When my axe got stuck in one of the hunter’s chest, I took his weapon to dispatch the remaining two. It was done in the blink of an eye. I was filled with joy for a second. I turned to my mother, happy, and I said, “I did it mom! I saved you this time. I did not let them take you from me again.”  
Upon hearing my words, my mother’s confusion cleared and left its place to sorrow.   
“Oh, dear boy! What kind of trouble did you get yourself into?” she said with a compassionate look. “That is not how it works.”  
While I was struggling with mixed emotions, once more, a bright light filled my entire vision and the whole thing restarted. “Nooo, I saved her gods damn it…” I said loudly as if god of time could hear me. “What am I supposed to do?” I waited in silence and expected an answer that never came. After this point on, I tried to save my mother in several different ways. One time, I held her hand and dragged her away from the hunters but the results were always the same. I have never felt so depressed and desperate in my life. I was so discouraged one time, I just stood still until the ritual restarted again. Only after then, my mother’s words echoed in my mind. “That is not how it works,” she said. What I have to do to complete this ritual occurred to me. I had to relive the exact experience I had in the past so I relived the dreadful moments I pushed to the darkest corner of my mind.   
I steadily walked towards the cabin. When I arrived at the opening of our cabin, my mother grabbed my hand and pulled me inside the cabin.  
“Listen to me well, son. A group of banshee hunters came for me. I am sorry this is happening so soon but it is time for us to part ways,” she said. She was acting quick but she was not afraid or anything. She was simply sad but determined.   
“What? Why? You did nothing wrong, we can talk to them” I said.  
“But I did, son. I have taken many lives over thousands of years. Even this body belonged to a woman who was a wife and mother to four children when I possessed it ten years ago. My past finally caught up with me and I am fine with it,” she said.  
“Then we fight, we can beat them,” I said in a desperate effort to convince my mother to live.   
“No. When we deal with these ones, there will always be more to come and I do not want to take another person’s body anymore. I am done with the killing,” she said. “The thought never occurred to me but I guess you have changed me.” She shed a single drop of tear for the first time in her life and kissed me on my forehead.   
“I do not care what you think, I will fight them. I am not letting you go,” I said and attempted to go outside.  
“But you will,” my mother said. This time she had a tougher tone in her voice. She waved her hands and an invisible force pulled in the storage room. She cast a couple of protection spells on the room and she stepped out. I looked out from the small window. She cast a weak fireball to defend herself but missed on purpose. As my mother cancelled her defenses, the banshee hunters overwhelmed her with magic projectiles, arrows. After making sure she had taken enough damage, they approached with swears and laughter of triumph and put her on her knees. These guys were jokes. If my mother were to fight just a bit seriously, she could have beaten them with her little finger. I did not understand why she chose to give up her life back then, but it happened anyway. Even when she was on her knees, she did not have any regrets. One of the hunters beheaded my mother with his battle axe. I felt unfathomable anger and sadness. I pounded the walls and the door of the storage room until my fists bled and shouted until I coughed blood. I only had one single thought in my mind; revenge. The hunters did not hear me because of the spell my mother cast on the room. They invaded our cabin and pillaged it. Every time one of them attempted to enter the storage room, they miraculously changed their minds and went another way. They burned the cabin when they were done and left. The protection spells protected me against the heat and smoke, but before that could happen and bright light filled my vision and I opened my eyes in the real world. All of my friends were next to me and were in trance.   
Mezzargard and Kurzon were already awake and the wolf greeted me.   
“What took you so long,” he said. “Do you want to talk about it?”  
“No,” I said. “So, this was the ritual.”  
“It is more like a trial. Isn’t it?” the wolf said.   
“What’s in it for him? The god of time?”  
“I am not exactly sure, but I believe he gains magical energy from our trials,” Kurzon explained. “It could be related to the effort one spends in the ritual. The more time you spend in there, the more energy the god of time gets, or something similar to that.”  
“To hell with him,” I said. “He is not a god, he is a parasite.”  
“My sentiments exactly, my friend. But all we can do at this time is to get this thing over with as quickly as possible,” Kurzon said. After a short while, Brock opened his eyes and sat without saying anything. After that, Amran, Kiki, Kir and Etri opened their eyes, in that order.   
“I am gonna kill that slime for putting us through this shit,” he said.   
We had to wait for Juniper to wake up for a bit longer but at the end, she opened her eyes in tears. Poor girl saw the murder of his brother on the first night of the tournament and desperately tried to save her, truly believing she could change the past.   
When we were all awake, we felt the presence of the god of time once again. He appeared in the form of a bright blue silhouette of a man. “I thank you all for your participation my loyal followers,” he said. “Now, before I leave, kneel before your magnificent god.”  
Although none of us were eager to kneel before this leech, we did what he wanted for the sake of Juniper as we did not want her to suffer more than she already did. Revenge would have to be taken on another day, as it was best served cold. When he left us, we got on ‘auto-buus’ and resumed our journey to Thilias. There had been no conversation for the rest of the trip except Kiki’s failed attempts to cheer us up. We reached the city’s gate at nightfall. As all of us needed a well deserved rest, we checked in at an inn to spend the night.


End file.
